Charlottesville
August 14, 2022
I remember driving by this hotel when I was in Santa Barbara. I paid $30 to camp by the beach.
What’s It Like at the Most Expensive Motel 6? Actually, Pretty Nice
The first Motel 6 charged $6 a night when it opened in Santa Barbara 60 years ago. That same place is charging more than 70 times that this summer.
SANTA BARBARA, Calif.—“Where are you staying?” asked the 20-something bartender at an East Beach gastropub.
I was a little embarrassed to tell him, given the luxury resorts and inns that dot this coastal enclave near the homes of Oprah, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
“Motel 6,” I said.
Before he could pass judgment, I asked him to guess the nightly room rate.
$150? Nope. $250? Nope. $350? Higher.
I was paying $426 for a night. Before taxes.
The 52-room motel is best known as the first Motel 6 in the country. It opened 60 years ago this summer with $6 room rates. (That’s nearly $59 in 2022 dollars.) But it also holds another, unofficial distinction: It’s the priciest Motel 6.
A recent weekend stay there cost over $400 a night.
Room rates at other Motel 6s soar during peak season and special events—a location in Scottsdale, Ariz., is asking $699 a night during next year’s Super Bowl. And rates are sky high everywhere this summer as travel surges. But the Motel 6 Santa Barbara Beach regularly commands the highest rates in the chain of 1,225 Motel 6s in the U.S. and Canada.
And it regularly sells out, thanks to its prime location in a tony, year-round vacation destination. It’s so busy, the motel’s new owner hasn’t been able to spend the night there yet. He bought the place from Motel 6 parent Blackstone Group in June.
Is any budget motel worth $400, or even $300, a night? Average daily rates in economy lodging averaged $81.77 January through June, according to the latest data from industry analytics firm STR.
The short answer: yes, relatively speaking.
I checked in (without identifying myself as a reporter) for two weekend nights in late July, booking two weeks in advance. Other guests I met paid between $225 and $450 a night before taxes. Those lower rates come thanks to AARP and early booking discounts. My first night’s stay was $407 before taxes.
Neighboring hotels, including the Mar Monte Hotel and the sprawling Hilton Santa Barbara, charged more than $800 the weekend I visited.
The Motel 6 Santa Barbara Beach isn’t in the same league by any measure, but it also isn’t your father’s frontage-road motor lodge.
The property sits just off Cabrillo Boulevard, where those fancier hotels are located, and is only 200 steps from the sand. I didn’t rent a car and walked to the beach, Stearns Wharf and downtown.
My room, 220, had an ocean view, a surprise upgrade from the front desk clerk after I paid a $20 early check-in fee and tipped her for fixing an error in my reservation.
The rooms have strong boutique hotel vibes thanks to a multimillion-dollar renovation completed in 2020.
An orange sign on the wall says “Relax.” Two mints sit on opposite corners of the inspirational note card on the nightstand. “You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf,” reads the quote from mindfulness guru Jon Kabat-Zinn.
There’s a blue retro minifridge and a rain showerhead in the decent-size bathroom. The toiletries aren’t name-brand, but also aren’t standard budget-hotel issue with shampoo and conditioner in a single bottle.
The Serta pillowtop mattress is comfy enough, too. The hotel’s new owner disagrees and says he wants new mattresses.
This place still has some budget motel in its DNA. The Amana air conditioner in the room is so old-school, you can find YouTube hacks on how to keep the fan running. The tiny hair dryer is bolted to the wall. The bedspreads are flimsy, the walls thin. And a sign taped to the outdoor ice machine by the pool urges guests not to fill their coolers with ice, so there’s enough for everyone.
There are no coffee makers in the room but you can find free coffee and powdered creamer in the lobby each morning.
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Patricia Dawes, a psychologist from Montreal, paid $1,600 including taxes for two rooms for two nights during a two-week road trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles with her family in late July. It was almost as pricey as their weeklong stay at a Los Angeles Airbnb.
Ms. Dawes and her husband, Jaime Samayoa, had never stayed at Motel 6. (Nor had I, as best I can recall.)
“I never had a great feeling about it,” she says. “It always looked like off-the-side-of-the-road super sketch.”
The rooms were a tight squeeze with two beds in them, but the family came to love the place. They enjoyed the proximity to the beach, ocean views from the pool, Adirondack chairs on the small deck above the pool and the retro décor.
“I’m pleasantly surprised, I have to say,” she says.
Debra Szuster was nervous when her husband booked the Motel 6 for a surprise six-night beach vacation, her first since the pandemic began. The Denver couple had stayed at one in Albuquerque a dozen years or so ago and found it to be nothing special.
She knew the Santa Barbara motel was different when they pulled into the parking lot.
“We drove up and I’m like, ‘This is going to be all right,’ ” she says. “Even from the outside it looked really clean and well-maintained.”
Ms. Szuster loved the location and the room décor but says she wouldn’t stay there again at rates that averaged $225 a night including taxes during their stay in late July. She says she likes to travel on a budget.
“It’s not exactly luxury accommodations,” she says. “I’d go someplace else and take my chances.”
A Motel 6 representative wouldn’t comment on the rates in Santa Barbara relative to the rest of the chain but in a statement said: “While rates may vary by destination or travel date, we remain committed to our cost-effective value proposition.”
Veteran hotelier Sanjay Patel, chief executive of Los Angeles-based family business Sanj Hotels, bought the motel in June for $14 million after having his eye on it “for ages.” The company owns five other Motel 6s in California.
He says that the outsize room rates in Santa Barbara are driven by market factors and that they bring higher expectations—expectations he plans to start addressing.
First on the list: in-room coffee makers. Then better mattresses.
“Once you’re paying this kind of number, some of these privileges should happen in the room,” he says.
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