Rest Haven Motel

Last updated
Rest Haven Motel
Usonian Inn.JPG
USA Wisconsin location map.svg
Red pog.svg
LocationE5116 US 14, Spring Green, Wisconsin
Coordinates 43°11′08″N90°03′47″W / 43.18556°N 90.06306°W / 43.18556; -90.06306 Coordinates: 43°11′08″N90°03′47″W / 43.18556°N 90.06306°W / 43.18556; -90.06306
Area1.8 acres (0.73 ha)
Built1951-52
Built byKraemer Bros.
ArchitectJesse C. Caraway
Architectural styleModern Movement
NRHP reference No. 11000478 [1]
Added to NRHPJuly 20, 2011

The Rest Haven Motel, also known as the Usonian Inn, is a historic motel at E5116 U.S. Highway 14 in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Mr. and Mrs. John Michels opened the motel in 1952 to serve travelers on the new route of U.S. 14, which was realigned to bypass downtown Spring Green in 1944. Architect Jesse C. Caraway, a member of Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin Fellowship, designed the motel according to Wright's Usonian principles. The hotel has a two-story central core, which contains its office and owner's residence, and two one-story wings of rooms with low cantilevered canopy roofs, reflecting the typical pattern of Usonian homes. Each room has small, high windows on the side of the building facing the road and larger windows in the rear; this arrangement, which was common to both Wright's work and motel designs of the era, provided lodgers with privacy while giving them a protected view of the motel's natural surroundings. While the hotel has passed through multiple owners, it is still in operation and is a rare intact example of an owner-occupied mid-century motel. [2]

The motel was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 20, 2011. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motel</span> Hotel catering to motorists

A motel, also known as a motor hotel, motor inn or motor lodge, is a hotel designed for motorists, usually having each room entered directly from the parking area for motor vehicles rather than through a central lobby. Entering dictionaries after World War II, the word motel, coined as a portmanteau of "motor hotel", originates from the Milestone Mo-Tel of San Luis Obispo, California, which was built in 1925. The term referred to a type of hotel consisting of a single building of connected rooms whose doors faced a parking lot and in some circumstances, a common area or a series of small cabins with common parking. Motels are often individually owned, though motel chains do exist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Price Tower</span> High-rise building in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, United States

The Price Tower is a nineteen-story, 221-foot-high tower at 510 South Dewey Avenue in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. It was built in 1956 to a design by Frank Lloyd Wright. It is the only realized skyscraper by Wright, and is one of only two vertically oriented Wright structures extant; the other is the S.C. Johnson Wax Research Tower in Racine, Wisconsin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rosenbaum House</span> Historic house in Alabama, United States

The Rosenbaum House is a single-family house designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright and built for Stanley and Mildred Rosenbaum in Florence, Alabama. A noted example of his Usonian house concept, it is the only Wright building in Alabama, and is one of only 26 pre-World War II Usonian houses. Wright scholar John Sergeant called it "the purest example of the Usonian."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wigwam Motel</span> United States historic place

The Wigwam Motels, also known as the "Wigwam Villages," is a motel chain in the United States built during the 1930s and 1940s. The rooms are built in the form of tipis, mistakenly referred to as wigwams. It originally had seven different locations: two locations in Kentucky and one each in Alabama, Florida, Arizona, Louisiana, and California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gerald B. and Beverley Tonkens House</span> Historic house in Ohio, United States

The Gerald B. and Beverley Tonkens House, also known as the Tonkens House, is a single story private residence designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1954. The house was commissioned by Gerald B. Tonkens and his first wife Rosalie. It is located in Amberley Village, a village in Hamilton County, Ohio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samara (house)</span> Historic house in Indiana, United States

Samara, also known as the John E. Christian House, is a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright located in West Lafayette, Indiana. The home is an example of the Usonian homes that Wright designed. Samara was built from 1954 to 1956 and was still occupied by the original owner, John E. Christian, until he died on July 12, 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gordon House (Silverton, Oregon)</span> Historic house in Oregon, United States

The Gordon House is a residence designed by influential architect Frank Lloyd Wright, now located within the Oregon Garden, in Silverton, Oregon. It is an example of Wright's Usonian vision for America. It is one of the last of the Usonian series that Wright designed as affordable housing for American working class consumers, which—in 1939—were considered to have an annual income of $5,000–6,000. The house is based on a design for a modern home commissioned by Life magazine in 1938.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herbert and Katherine Jacobs First House</span> House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

Herbert and Katherine Jacobs First House, commonly referred to as Jacobs I, is a single family home located at 441 Toepfer Avenue in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Designed by noted American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, it was constructed in 1937 and is considered by most to be the first Usonian home. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2003. The house and seven other properties by Wright were inscribed on the World Heritage List under the title "The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright" in July 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">U-Drop Inn</span> United States historic place

The U-Drop Inn, also known as Tower Station and U-Drop Inn and Tower Café, was built in 1936 in Shamrock, Texas along the historic Route 66 highway in Wheeler County. Inspired by the image of a nail stuck in soil, the building was designed by J. C. Berry. An unusual example of art deco architecture applied to a gas station and restaurant, the building features two flared towers with geometric detailing, curvilinear massing, glazed ceramic tile walls, and neon light accents. It has traditionally held two separate business: "Tower Station," a gas station on the western side, and the "U-Drop Inn," a café on the eastern side. Though it has passed hands several times in its history, the building has consistently housed the same types of businesses it was originally constructed for.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bachman–Wilson House</span> House in New Jersey, New Jersey

The Bachman–Wilson House, built in and originally located in Millstone, in Somerset County, New Jersey, United States, was originally designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1954 for Abraham Wilson and his first wife, Gloria Bachman. Ms. Bachman's brother, Marvin, had studied with Wright at Taliesin West, his home and studio in Scottsdale, Arizona. In 2014 the house was acquired by the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas and has been relocated in its entirety to the museum's campus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles L. Manson House</span> House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

The Charles L. and Dorothy Manson home is a single-family house located at 1224 Highland Park Boulevard in Wausau, Wisconsin, United States. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 5, 2016. Reference Number, 16000149.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dudley Spencer House</span> Historic house in Delaware, United States

The Dudley Spencer House, also called Laurel, is a Frank Lloyd Wright designed Usonian home in Wilmington, Delaware.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gregor S. and Elizabeth B. Affleck House</span> United States historic place

The Gregor S. and Elizabeth B. Affleck House, also known as the Affleck House, is a Frank Lloyd Wright designed Usonian home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in Metro Detroit. It is one of only about 25 pre-World War II Usonians to be built. It is owned by Lawrence Technological University. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 3, 1985.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Goetsch–Winckler House</span> United States historic place

The Goetsch–Winckler House is a building that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, built in 1940. It is located at 2410 Hulett Road, Okemos, Michigan. The house is an example of Wright's later Usonian architectural style, and it is considered to be one of the most elegant. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995 and is #95001423.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melvyn Maxwell and Sara Stein Smith House</span> United States historic place

The Melvyn Maxwell Smith and Sara Stein Smith House, also known as MyHaven, is a Frank Lloyd Wright designed Usonian home that was constructed in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in 1949 and 1950. The owners were two public school teachers living on a tight budget. The 1957 landscape design is by Thomas Dolliver Church. The home is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alvin Miller House</span> Historic house in Iowa, United States

The Alvin Miller House is a Usonian home beside the Cedar River in Charles City, Iowa. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and constructed over a five-year period completed in 1951. The single-story structure features a two-level flat roof which allows for clerestory windows. It was severely damaged in the flood of 2008. Restoration efforts surrounding the house after the flooding are detailed in the Alvin Miller House website.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Riverside Inn (Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania)</span> Building in Pennsylvania, United States

The Riverside Inn was a hotel and dinner theater in Cambridge Springs, Crawford County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Built in the late-1880s at the height of the mineral springs craze in the United States, it was operated as a resort for vacationers heading to the nearby springs that gave Cambridge Springs its name. The Riverside Inn was the first of many resorts to be built during that period. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The Riverside Inn was destroyed by fire in the early morning of May 2, 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenneth and Phyllis Laurent House</span> Historic house in Illinois, United States

The Kenneth and Phyllis Laurent House is a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Usonian house in Rockford, Illinois. It was the only house that Wright designed for a physically disabled client.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tucson Inn</span> Historic place in Tucson, Arizona

The Tucson Inn is a motel located in Tucson, Arizona, in an area now known as the Miracle Mile Historic District. The motel was built in 1953 in the Googie architecture and Modernist style, and is an example of historic 1950s Mid-century modern highway motel architecture.

References

  1. 1 2 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. November 2, 2013.
  2. Heggland, Timothy F. (December 8, 2010). "National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Rest Haven Motel". National Archives Catalog. National Archives and Records Administration . Retrieved May 11, 2023.

Commons-logo.svg Media related to Usonian Inn at Wikimedia Commons