The complex was complete with both its intact Motor Lodge and Restaurant until the middle 1990s. Remarkably the Restaurant was the second to last Howard Johnson's in the Show Me State! Probably in about 1995 or '96, the complex lost its name and became the Lamplighter Motor Lodge and Island Restaurant. Unbranded, the site was only lightly altered giving it a brief reprieve before the demolitioner and stucco mafia would arrive to utterly destroy its curb appeal.

By the early 2000s, the Motor Lodge was converted into a Baymont Inn and the Restaurant a Denny's. Note that the Baymont brand had been owned by La Quinta, but in January 2006 the Blackstone Group (liquidator and destroyer that it is) purchased La Quinta and its holdings for $3.4 billion. Then only two months later in March, Blackstone sold the Baymont Inn brand to the Cendant Hotel Group (recall that Cendant is now Wyndham International--Howard Johnson's brand owner and don't forget that Blackstone had once bought, owned, and then sold HJ sucking it dry). Of course Baymont is not the storied brand that Howard Johnson's was, but it is nonetheless interesting to see how Blackstone and its associates continue down the same path of destruction for quick profiteering.

Above & Below: Lake Ozark's Restaurant was apparently converted into a Denny's using the same architect as the one who converted St. Charles--probably both locations are owned (or were) by the same entity.

Lower: Just a hint of HoJo-ness was evident on the pool side as sliders and appealing unstuccoed wall surfaces remained.