Welcome to day 11 of 31 Days of Heterotopias: Motels and Hotels, a month of posts about how motels, hotels, and inns function as heterotopias and liminal spaces in society. (More about heterotopias and liminal spaces.) Each post will look at these ideas from its own vantage point, which may not obviously connect with the others, and which may mention motels and hotels only peripherally or may focus on them without referencing heterotopia or liminality. I won’t attempt to tie the posts together. They’ll all be listed here, as they are posted.
________________________________________________________
This must be a special class of heterotopia: hotels and motels that one sees, admires, perhaps even tours, but in which one never actually spends a night. I mean, talk about ships that pass, a crossroads of the familiar + unfamiliar, a place that’s also a non-place, a threshold that one walks right up to — but doesn’t cross; or does cross, and then crosses right back.
*
This is the Hampton Inn & Suites, on Amelia Island (Fernandina), Florida, Dec. 2016. Those sherbet colours!
*
Here’s the Norseman Inn, on a spit of land at Ogunquit, Maine, June 2015.
*
I’ve eaten at the Bohemian Inn in Savannah, GA — Christmas breakfast one year, a dinner another year, drinks at Rocks on the River another year — but I’ve never stayed in the hotel. I’d like to but I am in love with the HIX there.



*
The Westin on Jekyll Island, GA, is new-ish (2014?). It’s always been rather empty when I’ve been there.




*
This little Lighthouse Motel right on the beach in Pine Point (Scarborough), Maine was renovated recently and is now the Lighthouse Suites. It looks great. I’d like to stay here sometime.




*
This is a Westin hotel in Savannah, GA, across the river from downtown Savannah; you can take a commuter ferry that runs every 20 minutes between it and downtown Savannah. I’ve taken the ferry a number of times, just for the fun of it, but never stayed in the hotel; it seems a bit inconvenient unless you’re attending a conference there.




*
And finally, the Jekyll Island Club Hotel, an iconic place to stay on Jekyll Island, GA, but though we’ve been visiting the island since the 1990s, we’ve never stayed here. We have had a few Christmas brunches, some other meals, and a tour of the hotel, however. Looks nice!


















*
I can’t wait to not stay at some other hotels and motels!
*
Featured image is Holiday Inn at Jekyll Island, GA.
One comment