Home Away From Home: Motels in America by John Margolies

Hardcover

In lively text and more than 250 photographs, most in color, Margolies brings to life the new style of lodging that sprang up to serve the automobile traveler, from auto camps and mom-and-pop tourist cabins early in the century to today’s familiar motel chains. Along the way, he highlights many of the services and amenities – the decor, the swimming pools, the restaurants, and the pulsating signs – used to lure motorists into the nearest Kozy Kottage. He has discovered motels both marvelous and bizarre: log cabins, teepees, and even railroad freight cars transformed into sleeping cars. And he explores how the image of the motel in America has evolved – from seedy shacks to picturesque courts to today’s antiseptic but very comfortable way stations. Throughout, Margolies combines his signature photographs of hostelries past and present with postcards, brochures, and other amusing artifacts. Home Away From Home is a surprising and entertaining look at an omnipresent phenomenon, a nostalgic tour of sleepless nights and sweet dreams along the highways and byways of America.