The historic Highlander Motel in Williams, Ariz., has been acquired by a Belgian couple, and they vow to restore and improve the Route 66 motel.
The Highlander, built in 1950, was purchased in March 2011 by the husband-and-wife team Alan Aernoudt and Sandra Driesse of Belgium. Because of a long process in getting visas, the couple did not move into the motel until October.
In an email, Alan and Sandra told of their plans for the 12-unit motel:
We hope to get 3 or 4 rooms done by coming summer. We want to update the rooms with flatscreen TVs, nicer colors, and take the carpet out and put laminate floors instead.
The general idea is to keep the historic outside as is, but to make the inside more attractive with themes.
Other things we want to do is restore the neon and put a new coating and new white lines on the parking lot.
On the motel’s website, the couple also says it wants to build a breakfast room, where overnight guests can dine on Belgian specialties and other food.
The original owners of the Highlander was Marshall Duncan and his wife Ruth Ann, who owned it for 46 years. He was of Scottish descent, and the Highlands of his ancestral lands inspired the motel’s name. Duncan died at age 88 in 1999. Ruth Ann died in 1992.