Hotels & Motels Long Gone

As Dave McNair reported back in November, the old Air-Port Motel on Rte. 29 North (at Proffit Rd.) was recently slated for demolition to make room for a new Walgreen's. (I hear tell they call that "progress.") Here's what the place looked like back in the 1950s:














Well, I drove by the site the other day and sure enough, the Air-Port Motel is now gone. Dustbin of history and all that.

I have dozens of postcards of old Charlottesville hotels & motels (from back in their heyday) and it's sad to see how few of them are left. The ones that are the most interesting to me are the hotels that have been converted to new uses. How many of you have been out Ivy Rd. (Rte. 250 West) and driven by the small retail/office complex now known as "Ivy Commons"? Did you know that for decades it was better known as...













Siesta Motor Court? (Owned for a time, incidentally, by the same H.N. Neeley who used to operate the Air-Port Motel.)

And how many of you have ever browsed in the aisles of the Quest Bookshop on West Main St.? Perhaps you did not know that you were standing in what used to be the ground floor of...




















The Albemarle Hotel -- here pictured in the 1920s. (Description on back says: "A cordial welcome awaits you at THE ALBEMARLE HOTEL. Rates $1.50 to $2.50. Fire Proof--Free Parking. Our Air Conditioned Coffee Shop is widely known as Charlottesville's Smartest and Best Eating Place.")

I could go on -- there are many interesting examples of adaptive re-use around here. I'll post some more sometime. Too bad the Air-Port Motel was not able to meet a similar fate....