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Postcard circa 1960s
 
Rockford, Illinois -- 3909 Eleventh Street
 
Built with an included but detached Restaurant, the Rockford complex was opened in 1963. The facility was built in Howard Johnson's most classic design, and originally featured an outdoor swimming pool.
 
 
 
 
Photographs July, 2005: Courtesy of Bob Venditti
 
 
 
 

The Restaurant lost its dairy counter in the late 1970s or early '80s when the Company removed it to increase dining room space. Generally, sit-down dining resulted in higher profits so many locations were remodeled without the Counters and received a bay window across the front. At some point Rockford's Restaurant became attached to the Motor Lodge after convention rooms were added.

Note the Howard Johnson Hotel sign included parts of signs from different eras. The "indoor pool" and reader board dates from the 1970s, while the "Howard Johnson" part was added in about 1986--and the current logo was added after 1996.

 
 
 
 
 

While the more than forty-year-old Motor Lodge amazingly retained its famous Howard Johnson name and the underpinnings of what made a HoJo's superior to other hospitality concerns, the location had been remade into an edifice of garishness by 2005! Bob Venditti commented that its lobby looked like the "Gate Lodge From Another Planet." He also noted that the Motor Lodge's exterior had been painted in an unfortunate combination of colors--"Circus Peanut Orange and Cendant Blue."

Curb appeal be damned.
 
 
 
 
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