Home Away from Home: Motels in America [Hardcover]

John Margolies (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1995

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 rare postcards, vintage 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.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 127 pages
• Publisher: Bulfinch Pr; 1st edition (November 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821221620
• ISBN-13: 978-0821221624
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 9.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #484,874 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Walk Through Vacations Long Past, April 4, 2010

By 

Kindred "In All But Spirit" (Charlotte, NC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Home Away from Home: Motels in America (Hardcover)

When I was a child on a long drive with the family, I would notice these abandoned,run down groups of cottages on the back roads and wonder what it was like to stay in a place like this when it was new and popular and wonder why no one stayed there any longer. When I was grown I still would fantasize about how vacations in years gone by must have been different than the ones we know now.

Reading this book gave me a good feel for those past days and how families took to the road. The photos are gorgeous and sad at the same time. This is not a research material type book but a snapshot of the past.

Small bit of trivia- the opening credits for the movie Vacation actually shows the same cottages shown on the front cover. Frankly it looks so charming that it's easy to imagine moving in and living a permanent vacation.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Colorful Lightweight, October 24, 2001

By 

J Keistler "[e-mail]" (Lake Jackson, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Home Away from Home: Motels in America (Hardcover)

I've been a fan of Margolies since his first book, and I ordered this with high expectations.

Unfortunately, this book is almost completely advertisements and memorabia. There is very little narrative. Like another reviewer, I was quite disappointed that there was only a sketchy outlining of the various transitions that motels have progressed through over the generations. I got the impression that Mr. Margolies probably had most of these old brochures, cards, maps, etc., and simply assembled these in a chronological format.

On the other hand, if you are a fan of Margolies's photography, his own photographs in the book match his earlier photographic achievements.

This book is probably worth the price of admission, but I'd like to see a more comprehensive history of twentieth-century hospitality industry.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Spectacular photography and good historical summary, August 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Home Away from Home: Motels in America (Hardcover)

For all of us who stayed at the one and two story roadside motels of the 1960s and 1970s, this book will bring back great travel memories as well as educate us on the precurser to these lodging establishments. Fascinating and fast reading and it made me go out and locate some of the motels near my residence. The only down side is that it could have used a little more history on the early motel chains and the history of their demise. A section on motel bilboards would also have been entertaining. Otherwise, a great historical book.