Madonna Inn


The Madonna Inn is a motel in San Luis Obispo, California. Opened for business in 1958, it quickly became a landmark on the Central Coast of California. It was created by Alex Madonna, a successful construction magnate and entrepreneur, and his wife Phyllis. The inn includes a restaurant and bakery, and is located on the west side of US Route 101 and situated on the lower eastern portion of Cerro San Luis Obispo.

Description

The property is adorned with a pseudo-Swiss-Alps exterior and lavish common rooms accented by pink roses, Western murals, and hammered copper. The predominant exterior color is pink, which extends to the lamp posts and trash cans. Each of the 110 guest rooms and suites is uniquely designed and themed, though some tourists stop just to peek at the famous rock waterfall urinal located in the men's restroom, a feature designed by Hollywood set designer Harvey Allen Warren.
The boulders used for the Inn weigh up to for the exterior and for the interior. A boulder is shared as a fireplace for the adjoining Madonna and Old World suites.
In 1973, there were five buildings on the site:
NameImageGuest roomsFeatures
Gas station—
Main complex—Lobby, registration, restaurants, and meeting spaces
Unit 114Completed 1961. Rooms 101-115.
Unit 214Completed 1962. Rooms 116-129.
Hilltop82Completed 1969. Rooms 130-218. Ranges in height from two to four storeys.

;Notes
Aiming to cater to a range of tastes, rooms were given unusual names, amenities, and themes such as "Yahoo", "Love Nest", "Old Mill", "Kona Rock", "Irish Hills", "Cloud Nine", "Just Heaven", "Hearts & Flowers", "Rock Bottom", "Austrian Suite", "Cabin Still", "Old World Suite", "Caveman Room", "Elegance", "Daisy Mae", "Safari Room", "Highway Suite", "Jungle Rock", "American Home", "Bridal Falls", and "the Carin". Some rooms are grouped in themes. For example, the rooms "Ren", "Dez", and "Vous" are a play on the French word rendezvous, and "Merry", "Go", and "Round", for an amusement park carousel. Most of the themes were conceived by Alex and Phyllis Madonna, and some rooms were designed by Disney artist Alice Turney Williams.

History

The Madonna Inn opened as a motel inn on December 24, 1958 upon the completion of its first twelve rooms. The Madonnas were so excited to have their first guest, they refunded his $7 room rental. Demand was sufficient to expand to forty rooms in 1959, and the Inn facility was constructed in 1960. Reportedly, when the architect Richard Neutra stayed at the Inn, he asked Alex Madonna about the design: "Alex, you didn't have an architect here, did you? It's just as well you didn't because you couldn't have captured all the details if you had to draw them out. I don't know how you would draw these things and then accomplish them."
In May 1966, the Inn's original units were burned to the ground in a fire. It reopened a year later, and by the end of the decade, all of the rooms had been rebuilt in manner for which they are known today. There are 110 rooms.
In 1975, critic Paul Goldberger wrote an article about the Madonna Inn for The New York Times, bringing it to national prominence. By 1982, the Madonna Inn was already well-known, and Alex Madonna was quoted as saying, "Anybody can build one room and a thousand like it. It's more economical. Most places try to give you as little as possible. I try to give people a decent place to stay where they receive more than they are entitled to for what they're paying. I want people to come in with a smile and leave with a smile. It's fun."
Hanna-Barbera Productions sued the Madonna Inn in 1983, alleging copyright infringement over the Inn's "Flintstone Room" and its decorations, which included images of Fred and Wilma Flintstone and the exclamation "Yabba Dabba Doo". Room #139 is now the "Jungle Rock" junior suite. According to a 2013 interview with Clint Pearce, president of Madonna Enterprises, the "Caveman Room" was originally the "Flintstone Room".

In popular culture

Film