Motel Molly is giving vacay vibes. It’s giving idyllic. It’s giving “sizzling lady summer season” lives on in Mollymook, a city on the New South Wales south coast.
I’m in an oceanside room in one in all 4 colour-themed buildings referred to as Capri, Olive, Limoncello and Rosé. My room within the latter is available in pinks from powder to peach, coral and mauve with – squee! – a Smeg fridge and kettle in a high-gloss fairy-floss colourway. Elsewhere are rattan chairs, Scandi-style ceramics, glasses etched with frosted cursive font and a throw tufted with designs that vaguely evoke the US south-west.
Motel Molly’s enjoyable, female and retro aesthetic is shared throughout a lot of the Australian motels popping up out of the bones of buildings that initially welcomed street trippers from the Nineteen Fifties to the 80s. Simply whenever you assume the zeitgeist is at its zenith, one other opens: Casita Motel in Batemans Bay, promising “escape to a summer season mind-set”; The Shores on the Gold Coast, promising “poolside vibes, classic allure and limitless sunshine”.
In contrast to the high-rise condominiums which have remodeled locations just like the Gold Coast, the new-old motels are capped at two storeys and have a tendency to supply roomier proportions and extra contemporary air than boxy new-build lodges in an equal value level.
Renovating present buildings is much less wasteful than setting up a brand new lodge. Which doesn’t imply it’s straightforward. Berry View Lodge in Berry, additionally on the south coast, was in dire form when builders “took the roof off and stripped all of it out”, in accordance with its common supervisor, Peter Holcombe. “The pool was horrendous inexperienced and curtains have been nailed to partitions.”
Now, individuals pull over to {photograph} the motel’s tangerine-coloured doorways and classy pool space. The backlash from locals cautious of improvement is over, Holcombe says; they now see its cheery facade as “the gateway to Berry”.
On the mid-north coast, in Crescent Head, vans circle like sharks close to the purpose break seaside; boards on high with fins up like a finger to the wind – finest when blowing offshore from the west and paired with an east-south-east swell. You should buy oysters within the bottle store and prawns from a truck. A dust street ambling south by way of Limeburners Creek nationwide park results in some blissful again seashores.
“It’s only a cool vibe right here,” says George Gorrow, the designer and hotelier recognized for founding the denim model Ksubi. In 2016 he opened The Sluggish lodge in Canggu, Bali, along with his spouse, Cisco Tschurtschenthaler, and in 2023 the couple opened Sea Sea Lodge in Crescent Head. Their aim of “surf shack meets Alpine lodge meets Bavarian searching hut” was squarely achieved in a meticulous rework of an present motel.
Sea Sea’s breezy indoor-outdoor restaurant and bar made waves in a city that even essentially the most loyal of locals admit had no respectable meals choices. Now, due to Sea Sea, it’s obtained all the things from chef takeovers that includes “tide to desk” menus to bar employees who know their vermentinos from their viogniers on an inventory curated by Mike Bennie, the founding father of Sydney’s pure wine-focused retailer P&V Wine and Liquor.
With date-night lighting buzzed by group-hang vibes, the music is curated by Gorrow’s associates at Reverberation Radio in Los Angeles. The identical tunes play within the rooms, cabled into bespoke audio system that double as bedside tables.
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The couple are trendsetters – so what’s in retailer for “Creso”, some resident now marvel. The proprietor of the Station Boardstore, JJ, says the city is “about 60/40” for and in opposition to Sea Sea. “Some individuals assume it’s a bit swanky and say, ‘If you would like that sort of factor go to Byron,’” he says.
Gorrow will get it. He got here right here masses as a child on surf journeys along with his dad. “The very last thing we would like is for this place to show into the brand new Byron Bay,” he says. There was already a lodge right here, he factors out, however the homeowners “had misplaced the love”. Other than doing a cracking commerce in milestone birthday events, Sea Sea is reserving native bands, showcasing artists and surf movies and has put in almost 3,000 crops. “It’s going to take time to earn our stripes with all of the locals however we’re off to a great begin,” Gorrow says.
In 2022 the Timothée Resort opened in Busselton, Western Australia, advertising its unique Eighties breakfast hatches, as a result of who doesn’t love near-extinct mod cons? They aren’t used for cornflakes, Tip Prime bread and sachets of Nescafé although, as a result of like all the new-old motels the Timothee Resort has learn the room and is aware of nostalgia is a visible lure solely. Breakfast right here is an all-local Margaret River affair with bagels and schmear, oven-baked granola, cold-pressed juice and rip-and-drip filter espresso.
The motels’ unique heyday is documented by the structure fanatic and comic Tim Ross in Motel: Pictures of Australia on Holidays. He writes that the uptake of vehicles within the 50s, and tedium with pub stays, made motels with en suites, a pool and color TVs “a trendy and complex method to journey” for households.
At the moment’s revamped motels fluctuate significantly in facilities and price. A midweek reserving, off season, on the Berry View – the place it’s important to depart the premises for breakfast – will set you again $175 an evening for room with a queen mattress, or $160 for a single. A summer season weekend keep at Sea Sea, with entry to its restaurant, bar, lounge, sauna, ice bathtub and pool, runs to $503 an evening.
If most of the made-over motels’ social media profiles are an indication, the demographic has flipped from households to photogenic younger ladies in swimwear, with a heavy emphasis on Membership Med-style imagery.
Is that the sort of retro we would like revived? Maybe it will get others pouncing on the “ebook now” button however I’m rattled by how unsure this advertising makes me really feel about becoming in. Perhaps the motels are merely yielding to the truth of the Instagram algorithm, or, much less optimistically, perhaps the physique positivity motion was only a fleeting fantasy of a extra inclusive future. It wouldn’t be the one progressive very best sinking like a stone proper now.
The infantilising touches chafe a little bit, too. At The Kyah, a pleasant motel in Blackheath that gives a much-needed various to the Blue Mountains’ usually frilly, fusty lodging, the “don’t disturb” door signal reads: “Soz, not proper now … constructing an superior pillow fort.”
Even Motel Molly’s cute “Gone for a dip” signal solely is sensible after I learn the reverse: “Having a sleep”. The quirky mantras really feel vaguely dictatorial. Ought to I be taking a dip? Having a sleep? Constructing a pillow fort? Most likely. The place are my #vacayvibes?
The ubiquity of a single shared aesthetic that idealises the previous is perplexing, too. Holidaying merely in one other place isn’t sufficient any extra: we would like one other time.
However regardless of how onerous they’re making an attempt for Amalfi Coast meets Palm Springs meets Seventies Los Angeles, the overwhelming right here and now of Australia prevails. At Motel Molly, the violet-blue skies are stuffed with screeching birds, the bushes hum with bugs and the air is salted with sea spray. In contrast to the all-pink palette, these interesting options are timeless.
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