There were no vacancies under the motel sign for the neon farm house last Saturday, in fact, there are no rooms, in fact. But the property of the river of the 1950s, now known as the collective of the Casa de la Granja, was more busy than for decades.
At 10 in the morning, when a tape cut marked the rebirth of the farm house as a mini shopping center, food hall and music place, the parking lot was full.
The old motel garages next to the rooms were locked and became interior retail spaces.
(David Fouts / for times)
At noon, Steve Elliott of Smokey Steve barbecue had sold around 160 pounds of meat from his emerging cabin and there was a long line for tacos of $ 6 in bar or mode.
To Almin, a several hundred audience had gathered to see the Los Angeles Allah indie band Allah-La Take the outdoor stage.
Until this redesign, the Motel Farm House “was a camp for homeless for a long time,” said James Elliott, 29, who is next to the emerging market in the opening event. “As long as you have the vision, you can change anything.”
The group of the farm has not yet reached all the force; Around half of their tenants have not yet been opened.
(David Fouts / for times)
The renewal project, which has included more than $ 4 million in design and construction works, has clung to the rural theme of the old motel, the red buildings cut to evoke barns, a vintage truck Ford F-100 parked together with the catwalk. Next to the repainting, the sign of the Casa de la Granja Re -Cable is a fiberglass horse and a buggy, contributed by the Camou family, owners of the motel for decades.
As the motels of the mid -century fade into history, some move with luxury and become boutique hotels, some are level or acquired by government agencies such as transition housing. And a few in southern California, including the farm, Roy's Motel in Amboy and the Pink Motel in Sun Valley, have assumed new commercial lives that do not involve pajamas but evoke the past. In each location, a vintage sign flashes, inviting guests to enter an American setback scene or capture it with a camera.
The most dramatic profitless example of the Motel Renaissance can be the Lorraine motel in Memphis, Tennessee, which was the 1968 murder site of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and reopened in 1991 as the National Civil Rights Museum. Recent commercial examples include Fergusons Downtown in Las Vegas, a motel of the 1940s Reborn as a food and retail center in 2019. A shopping center project in the old motel of the hacienda in Albuquerque will open this year.
“There are many of these buildings in the middle of the century that still have possibilities if people want to enter and save them,” said Beverly Bailey, co -founder and director of Development of the Farm House project. “They are jewelry and bring life to a city.”
Roy's of Amboy, a desert icon
In the advanced post of the Amboy desert, along Route 66 to about 210 miles east of Los Angeles, a small team of workers hold the most emblematic non -functional accommodation in California: Roy's Motel and Cafe. Its 1959 sign can be misleading (neither the motel nor the coffee have been open for at least 30 years), but the crew sells gas, memories and snacks and, sometimes, host of filming and special events.
Every day, Amboy's manager Ken Large said that the desert rats, lovers of Route 66 and many travelers on the way from Las Vegas to Joshua Tree converge under the red, blue, black and yellow sign, which rises 50 feet and illuminates every night. About 80% of those who stop, Large said, come from Europe.
“It is shocking how many tattoos I have seen of that sign,” Large said. “I bet that I have seen a thousand.”
The owner of Roy (and all Amboy) is Kyle Okura, whose late father, businessman and philanthropist Albert Okura, bought it in 2003. The sign in 2019 relieved, ending more than 30 years of darkness. The youngest Okura and the company have been improving the infrastructure constantly and would like to reopen the motel, maybe it even lights the six cabins in time for Route 66 Centennial in 2026.
But as a great recognition, that “could be a section.” Groundwater in Amboy is approximately 10 times more salty than the sea, Large said, and for years, all drinking water has been transported in a truck. To grow substantially, said Large, Roy and Amboy need easier access to drinking water, probably through a groundwater purification process.
For now, the cabins are inactive next to the motel office with glass walls and their roof raquest inclined. The office includes an old Zenith television, a typewriter, a tail piano and the switches that illuminate the sign, all the characteristics of a stage for a play in the spirit of Sam Shepard or Samuel Beckett.
If there are travelers at hand at sunset, Roy's assistant, Nicole Rachel, said: “We will invite you to enter and turn on the sign themselves. I have had crying people.”
“I am fascinated with this part of the country,” said Chris Birdsall, a 51 -year -old Trucker from Omaha who was delayed when the sunset approached a recent night. “I want to see the illuminated signal. That great arrow … almost has an extraterrestrial connection.”
A few minutes later, Rachel invited Birdsall to throw the switch, and the sign blinked on the wind hit by the wind.
In Sun Valley, movies and earring from the middle of the century
In the Pink Motel in San Fernando Road in Sun Valley, the last guest during the night was checked about 10 years ago. But filming equipment continues to arrive.
The 3.5 Acres family property, which includes a 20 -room motel and the Cadillac Jacks Caffa closed to the public, has entered a life beyond it as a location of filming and special event. Instead of travelers with liquidity problems and hazardous links, the Motel houses music videos, dog shows, wedding photos, car club meetings, social media meetings and skate events in their empty pool.
Without a doubt, this is not what Maximillian Joseph Thomulka and his wife, Gladys Thomulka, imagined when they built and opened the place after World War II.
“It was built in 1946. But the atmosphere is like 1955, '56, “said co -owner Tonya Thomulka, granddaughter of the founders, at the beginning of 2025. (The subsequent messages were not returned).
The coffee was built in 1949, the pool in 1959, when San Fernando Road was part of the 99 highway, boiling with drivers who go to and from the San Joaquín Valley. Then came the interstatal 5. The neighborhood went to the south.
At the end of the 1970s, the son of the founders, Monty Thomulka, directed the motel, restoring old cars and beginning to rent the location occasionally. In 1986, the restaurant closed. Then, in 2015, the year in which Monty Thomulka died, the family stopped renting rooms during the night.
But the production teams, attracted to the style of the mid -century and the sandy environment, continued to arrive. Among the television loans of the motel: episodes of “Law & Order”, “The Incredible Hulk”, “Dexter”, “The OC” and “Glow” (2017-19). Among his cinematographic credits: “Drive”, “Garease 2”, “Pink Motel” and “The Search for Animal Chin” by Stacy Peralta, a 1987 skate film that has a teenager Tony Hawk.
Today, the property (not open to the public, but partially visible from the street) is full of recoil images, including its sign, the restaurant and seven rooms equipped in styles of the 50s and 60s. Los Angeles Conservancy calls it “a wonderful example of the commercial resources of the road of the middle of the century that are disappearing so quickly from the landscape.”
New life in the Casa de Campo de Riverside
In the calendar of events in Farm House Collective: Pop-Up Markets, Coachella Watch Parties and a Brunch Gospel.
(David Fouts / for times)
Before 1969, University Avenue in Riverside was an occupied road, part of US 395, which made the Motel of the farm a main stop for travelers. But as this traffic moved to state routes 60 and 91, trade vanished along that section of University Avenue, despite the growth of nearby UC Riverside. The neighborhood faded even more, the locals say, after the closing of 1989 of the nearby Riverside International Raceway (now the Moreno Valley shopping center). Farm House Motel closed in 2007, and a year later, property went to the city's property.
Los Baileys, whose family business based in Perris, Stonghold Engineering, has been doing electrical, design and construction for more than 30 years, bought the old city motel in 2018. Under that agreement, the family paid the city $ 210,000 for the property of the farm house of 1 Acre, which “we thought at that time was a great purchase,” said Beverly Bailey.
The Farm House Collective on its first day on Saturday, March 29, 2025.
(David Fouts / for times)
The family hired the Orange County Consulting Consulting Company, which has worked on retail projects, including the Anti-Mall Laboratory, the Camp and the Packaging District of Anaheim (located in a complex of historical buildings). The old garages next to the rooms were locked up and became covered retail spaces: a restaurant from Acai Bowl, a plant store, an artisanal boutique and other places have opened, with more to come.
An outdoor scenario, which is where the motel pool was, is flanked by 10 elm trees and a variety of friendly games for children. The Baileys plan one or two musical performances per month, perhaps more later, and the stage will also offer movie projections, television sports vision and other events.
Not all motel are a strong candidate for a life after life without touch, since developers in other places have learned in the difficult way. But with a university by hand, local leaders in support and an encouraging beginning, several locals said the farm house seems appropriate for the challenge.
“It's a super great place where you can relax,” said Amy Martínez, who grew up in Riverside, moved to Upland and returned to see the openness with his family. The neighborhood has traveled a long road, he said, and “to see the rest of the stores open, that will be good.”
The opening of the Granja House collective marked the end of an inactive period after the closing of the Motel of the House of the Farm of Riverside.
(David Fouts / for times)
