The 1st Motel
In the development of world accommodations, 5-star hotels are a very recent phenomenon. The notion of hospitality is ancient, of course, and people have been traveling since people started walking. There are mentions of different kinds of lodging throughout history, in plays as well as fiction, which suggest that wanderlust is really nothing new. The notion of international standards that could designate a hotel as 5-star, however, does speak to our time. Our hotels are extremely contemporary, then, but there are certain touches of the ancient qualities of earlier lodgings, especially when it comes to hospitality. The sense of luxury here is really rather royal as well, where guests are treated to very personal service, with access to meals and guest services 24-hours a day. No matter what the location, the same excellence applies, where only the highest standards are demonstrated.
It’s fascinating to look at the history of lodging, and to find examples of luxury from other centuries. The idea of luxury itself can cover a very wide spectrum. In most places, and in most times, it was reserved for the aristocracy, and the royal treatment was always reserved for royalty. There are moments in time, though, when luxury is seen as something that should be accessible to all people, or under a benevolent king, something everyone deserved. This idea isn’t very deep in our past, either. In fact, just last century, the motel was the latest rage. The world’s first motel was The Milestone in San Luis Obispo, in California in the U.S.
The word motel is, of course, a contraction of motor and hotel. The idea behind the motel was that it could be a place where people could stop while traveling, and stay close to their cars. This is what Arthur Hieneman was considering when he built the Milestone, and he imagined that the love affair with the automobile in North America would make his new idea very popular. Setting it between Los Angeles and San Francisco, he was also counting on the potentially high volume of travelers between these two cities. It was priced for the upper middle class, at $1.25 a night for two rooms and a private garage, and intended to keep travelers sleeping safe with their cars also locked up for the night. The idea obviously had spectacular merits, but the timing was off as the Great Depression would make it impossible for the next decade.
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