One of America's loveliest diners (oh, to see it on rainy night) is for sale; a New England midcentury inn hits the market; 'Brady Bunch' house gets 'Brady-er' | Retrologist Roadside Roundup
Plus, Pacific Dining Car burns; a Manhattan diner pleads for help and more headlines from the American roadside.
Hello, fellow Retrologists!
There has been lots of roadside news since I last checked in, but I’ve been on the road and on my laptop, working on my book — important deadlines are here — but I’m starting to share more on Substack and on Instagram again, and, when the time is right, I’ll reveal more about the book.
Thanks for the continued support of my efforts during my periodic absences this year. I have so much good stuff in store for you!
So, let’s get to it.
“As long as we have rainy nights and that neon sign, we’ll be all right, at least on this corner of the Berlin Turnpike.”
One of America’s finest and most photogenic diners, the Olympia Diner in Newington, Connecticut, is on the market. I hold little hope that the buyer will keep it in its original use. This is one valuable piece of land surrounded by strip malls and chain stores on Berlin Turnpike. The stretch was once bustling with midcentury roadside Americana and the glow of diner neon, the Olympia its most distinctive survivor.
This prefabricated stainless-steel diner, a Jerry O’Mahony, opened as the Olympia in 1955. (The year 1954 is usually offered as the start date, but a Hartford Courant report from Sept. 2, 1955, states that the Olympia Diner Corp. had secured a $40,000 permit for the placement of the prefabricated diner here. The trail of classified ads seeking staff begins only in late August 1955.) The numerologically minded will have noted that this potentially dreadful news coming as the diner’s 70th anniversary nears.
The real-estate listing leaves nothing to the imagination as to the diner’s potentially grim fate.
Here’s a taste of the ad’s language:
High Profile Redevelopment Site
High Visibility
Most Sought After Corridor of the Turnpike
Hard Corner - Signalized Intersection
High Traffic
To drive it home, the listing says it’s an “exceptional opportunity of this many uses redevelopment site.”
Alas, nowhere does it say, “Here’s your chance to own a turnkey classic diner,” nor is the price listed. Could that still happen? Sure. Will it? What do you think? If I had money to burn, I’d go around the country buying places like the Olympia Diner and keeping them viable, but I don’t, and most people who do aren’t rescuing diners. And so here we are.
In 2021, I finally got the shot of my dreams of this diner, the neon reflected on the rain-glossed parking lot.
As I wrote that December night, “As long as we have rainy nights and that neon sign, we’ll be all right, at least on this corner of the Berlin Turnpike.”
Sigh ….
Here’s your chance to buy a chic, retro seaside motor inn in beautiful New England
The death last month of beloved comic Bob Newhart ignited memories of his 1980s sitcom “Newhart,” in which he played the co-owner, with his wife, of an 18th-century New England inn populated by zany characters in a town teeming with eccentrics. The inn on the show, called the Stratford, was based on the Waybury Inn, which I visited a couple of summers ago in Middlebury, Vermont, and wrote about on the Retrologist a while back. (My Instagram tribute to Newhart is above.)
The colonial style comes to mind when thinking of a New England inn, or perhaps it’s a modernist ski chalet or a rustic Tudor. But I’m going to introduce you to the midcentury, motor-court variety. This is the Rye Motor Inn, a beautifully restored resort in Rye, New Hampshire, sitting right off the Atlantic Ocean and a quick drive to lovely Portsmouth. I stayed here on a stormy July night in 2021, and loved it.
Now, here’s your chance to pull a Dick Loudon (Bob Newhart’s character on the sitcom) and become a New England innkeeper. Owner Doug Palardy reached out to me to let me know he had placed the inn on the market as he begins to ease into an early retirement. (Mazel!) The Rye Motor Inn can be yours for $6.5 million.
From the listing:
This 1950s 4-season motor inn underwent a complete, historically sensitive renovation in 2021. Completely modernized for today's traveler while reintroducing the on-trend, retro-themed decor, this unique property is poised for continued growth. Offering 12 studio and 1-bedroom units over two structures, these apartment-style rooms provide the flexibility for longer stays as each has its own full kitchen and bathroom. Current ownership operates as a limited service apart-hotel model with year over year growth since opening in 2021. Approvals are in place add a 1000 sq ft, 2-bedroom apartment above the retail/office space. Ability to add a 15th bedroom on property is viable. The oversized, heated pool with spacious deck and bold views to the Isles of Shoals is an ideal for setting for small events. The large, flat yard can accommodate tents, a perfect setting for popular micro-weddings of 30 or less guests. The poolside cabana with bathroom has been designed to accommodate a commercial caterer's kitchen/bar for event purposes. The property also includes a petite retail/office space that houses the popular boutique: The Swim Shop. Continue to operate this seasonal retail component or lease for additional income. Set across Ocean Boulevard from the ocean and a short walk to Odiorne State Park. The property could be ideal for the resident owner operator with the addition of the 2-bedroom apartment or as part of a portfolio model. Or re-imagine this rare 1.52 ac. ocean view parcel.
Palardy told me Saverio (Sam) Truglia opened the inn in 1956 as the Surf Haven Motel. It was later renamed Pebble Beach Motel, which didn’t sit too well with the owners of Pebble Beach Resorts in California, who threatened legal action. It then became the Pebble Cove Motel in the 1980s.
Palardy purchased it in 2020 and undertook a top-to-bottom renovation and reimagination of the property — even the pool is heated for the first time in the motel’s history.
For the right party, this could be the knock of opportunity!
Read more about the vintage-motel restoration trend here, here and here
Just when you thought ‘The Brady Bunch’ house couldn’t get more Brady Bunchy
On a recent trip to Los Angeles, I made my obligatory visit to “The Brady Bunch” house, but this time, what is a perpetually surreal experience for this Gen X classic-television-besotted Retrologist reached a new level of “pinch me now.”
The house’s new owner has two cars parked outside that any true Brady fan will recognize. They are the same models of the station wagon and convertible that the Bradys had on the show in the 1970s. The station wagon, a Plymouth Satellite Wagon, was parked outside the house, while the red convertible, Mr. Brady’s red convertible Chevrolet Caprice Classic, was in the driveway.
(For an extra insider-fan touch, the convertible is behind a parking cone with an egg on top, a nod to the 1974 episode “The Driver’s Seat,” in which siblings Marcia and Greg compete to see who is the better driver, and have to pull the car up to the cone without knocking down the egg as the ultimate test. Both cars are also fitted with replicas of the original plates seen on the sitcom.)
I gasped when I saw the cars! My goodness, the Bradys ARE HOME!
The house has long been a tourist attraction, at least since people started to find its address on the Internet in the mid-1990s. Surely, this took a little more determined detective work, like every research project did, during our pre-digital days. (I made my first pilgrimage here in 1996.) It’s supposedly the most photographed house in America after the White House.
But aside from the facade, it bore no resemblance at all to the show's set inside. Outside, the main facade lacked the big window that was added for the filming of establishing shots to give the ranch house the false sense that it was far larger.
The “Brady-fication” of the house began in 2019 when HGTV teamed the Property Brothers, Drew and Jonathan Scott, with the “Brady Bunch” kids in the reality series “A Very Brady Renovation.” The cable network had purchased the home after its longtime owner died, famously outbidding Lance Bass. When the series was done, the interior sets from the show had been painstakingly recreated inside, an astonishing accomplishment that involved imaginative engineering and the dogged pursuit of antiques and decor, no detail too small, to capture the look perfectly.
Then the house sat for years, a security car obnoxiously parked outside of it, its future unknown. Last year, the cable network finally sold the house to a superfan, Tina Trahan, for $3.2 million — at a loss — and she is showing her Bunchian bonafides with those cars that complete the very Brady look.
In an interview last year, she called buying the house the “worst investment ever” but surely she has no regrets. The house isn’t very livable, she told the Wall Street Journal, but to make it so is to take away from what she (rightfully!) considers an artwork.
If she ever rents it out, I’ll be the first in line. Just take my money! (Or at least, let me poke around! If somebody has an “in,” please help this super fan out!)
Roadside Americana Headlines
The Tony Dapolito Recreation Center in Manhattan is facing demolition. It is the home of a priceless 1987 Keith Haring mural.
Pacific Dining Car was one of my favorite haunts in Los Angeles. It was a century-old restaurant where one could enjoy a fine meal in an elegant setting, as if in an old, opulent rail car. I loved it at brunch or the middle of the night—especially the middle of the night. It’s been closed for a few years and was recently declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument. Now, it’s a mess, seriously damaged in a fire. It’s still listed as “temporarily closed,” in a perverse display of optimism.
The remnants of the Sky-Vue Drive-In Theater in Lamesa, Texas, have been placed in storage after the land was taken by eminent domain. The theater had been closed since 2015, and the owners called the remnants “a starter kit” for a possible revival down the road.
One of my favorite spots in Manhattan, La Bonbonniere, could use some help as it faces the costly demolition of its Covid-era sidewalk shed and necessary renovation inside. Those sheds were lifesavers for many restaurants during the pandemic, but they have become vestigial in most cases, and a nuisance in some, and the city unveiled a new, if complicated, approach for restaurants to stay in the outdoor dining game. Here is the GoFundMe if you are interested or able to help.
California’s Mel’s Drive-in chain is opening a new location — in Tennessee!
The beloved but financially challenged McAlpine’s Diner and Soda Fountain in Phoenix is among the many lucky recipients of a $50,000 grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express's "Backing Historic Small Restaurants." They’ll use the money to restore the facade.
Congrats to Tom’s Place in Lemont, Illinois, which is celebrating its 100th birthday. It features a lovely Blatz Beer privilege neon sign.
Wilson Tang, who revived the historic Nom Wah Tea Parlor in Manhattan’s Chinatown, is moving on to other projects.
Long Island’s historic Milleridge Inn, parts of which date to the 17th century, is closing for a refresh amid a decline in sales after the pandemic.
Granite City, Illinois, has opened a sign park teeming with neon representing classic businesses in a celebration of its Route 66 heritage. The signage brings back Hudson Jewelers, Reese Drug Store, and the Washington Theatre.
After a half-century, San Francisco’s Silver Crest Diner has closed.
Las Vegas’ Neon Museum is looking to relocate and expand.
Hidden Sign Highlight: The Preview Sandwich Shop in Manhattan
FUN FIND: One of New York’s best vintage signs is hidden under the Hello Deli’s awning next to the Ed Sullivan Theater. This used to be Preview Sandwich Shop. This deli, under the name Hello Deli, became famous after David Letterman, whose “Late Show” occupied the theater for 22 years, turned store owner Rupert Jee into a celebrity. Rupert retired last year, but the Preview’s long farewell continues.
Thank you for sharing these timeless treasures! As a fan of roadside diners, motels and neon, it warms my heart to wake up to them in my inbox.
Keep up the great photos!
Thank you for the wonderful job you do bringing “Forgotten Americana” to the very small screen. We deeply apologize your efforts!!