A husband-and-wife team recently purchased the closed Hill Top Motel in Kingman, Arizona, and plan to spend a half-million dollars renovating the historic Route 66 property.
Francisco Sinopoli and Makenzie Baker, who are chiropractors, are the motel’s new owners after Mohave State Bank foreclosed on it in December, reported the Kingman Daily Miner. They bought the motel for $157,500 and closed the deal in mid-April.
Baker told the newspaper they plan to restore it to its original look from the 1950s.
She wants to modernize the rooms, replacing the carpet with hardwood flooring and expanding a couple rooms into “luxury” suites. All of the old mattresses and bedding have been removed from the rooms, along with 30 to 50 years of stuff that should have been replaced long ago.
“Any of the old furnishings that are still in good shape, we want to keep and restore, the little dressers and light fixtures,” Baker said. “A couple of the bathrooms have lime green tile. That’s definitely 1950s. Modern vintage is what we’re looking for.” […]
“The charm is in what’s here,” Baker said. “My husband and I have always loved the sign. We finally drove into the parking lot and enjoyed the view.”
Baker said they’ve already removed six tons of garbage from the property.
John Mescheid built the motel in 1954 and its swimming pool a few years later.
The motel went through seven sets of owners, including longtime proprietor Dennis Schroeder, who ran it from 1981 to 2017.
The Hill Top Motel remains infamous for Room 119, where Timothy McVeigh stayed for four days in 1995 before bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City a few weeks later. The terrorist act killed 168 people and injured hundreds more. The registration card McVeigh filled out at the motel later was entered into evidence during his death-penalty trial.
(Image of the Hill Top Motel’s neon sign in 2012 by el-toro via Flickr)
Ladies & Gentlemen! Another magnificent save! Best of luck to Baker/Sinopoli as they embark upon their new business venture. I hope that their renovation of the Hill-top turns out to the swank 1950s-vintage they want it to be, so that we can all enjoy it.
Fantastic news.
And today, the motel is still closed, what becomes of it?