A BRIEF HISTORY

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As Boone has grown, most of the dozen or so roadside lodgings that sprang up as automobile travel boomed in America have been replaced by student housing and big box hotels. The BRTC is the oldest remaining roadside motel in Boone, and we didn't want to see this piece of history lost to a development project. Through the restoration, we focused on rehabilitating existing characteristics of the original structure, and leaning into 1940-1950's design as we re-built the rooms, with the added comfort of an upscale modern boutique hotel. Due to the state of the structure at the time we purchased it, we had to go down to the dirt beneath the floors and to the block behind the interior walls. Through this process, we carefully documented the existing layout and details of the rooms. We consulted with a historical consultant (Eric Plaag of Carolina Historical Consulting), and did extensive research on this little motel as well as other regional and national roadside motels of the era to be sure we respected the nature of our mid-century roadside motel. We added insulation, updated plumbing, electrical, heat and A/C and new slabs to bring the structure up to modern standards. We used skilled artisans that carefully restored the steel frame casement windows, repaired damaged stucco, rebuilt crumbling retaining walls, and restored openings that had been cut into the exterior hand-crafted brick pattern stucco, to name a few. We designed the spaces to reflect the style of the 1950's (centered around the colors of our candy-colored vintage wall hung sinks), with the help of Jason Todd Bailey's incredible design eye. We selected vintage furniture and décor for each room with its own flair. At the same time, we carefully sourced luxury linens, furniture, beds and finishes to create an upscale hotel experience. 

Estel Wagner, an eager young business man, built the motel as a way to make a start in his new community, and to cash in on the booming tourism industry in and around Boone, NC. His participation in the Chamber of Commerce made him keenly aware of the need for lodging to accommodate visitors to the Blue Ridge Parkway as it neared completion and for a planned outdoor drama, Horn in The West, that he was active in bringing to the community. The property was constructed in three phases. The “office”, and the main “tourist court” building (rooms 101-107) were built in 1950. These were followed shortly by the building just to the east that we call “the annex” (rooms 108-109) and a small “garage apartment” (just south of the original owner's house) around 1953. Both “the annex” and the “garage apartment” were constructed in a way to accommodate long-term, repeat customers; the former as two, two-room suites and the latter as a two-bedroom, one bathroom apartment complete with a full kitchen and sitting room. The last building added to the complex, “the motel” (rooms 201-209) was completed by 1955. Estel sold the complex a few years after its completion, going on to have a successful career in the real estate industry, building several other properties in Boone including The Cabana Motel near Appalachian Teachers College which was lost to development in the mid-2010s. The Blue Ridge Tourist Court changed names and hands from time-to-time through the 1900s with continual use as a motel into the early/mid 1990s.