The historic Green Tree Inn in Victorville, Calif., soon will be thoroughly revamped, including all 200 room, reported the Victorville Daily Press.
The motel, built in 1963, sits off Route 66 and Interstate 15. It was foreclosed two years ago and, after that, went through two successive owners in less than a year.
Marc Melloul has been the motel’s manager for nine months. The newspaper reported:
Owners began remodeling the hotel’s reception area and coffee shop some three weeks ago. Melloul said they hope to be done around late October, with a grand opening celebration in the works.
A coffee bar, a highend lounge area and touches such as chandeliers from Italy are a few of the amenities headed for the hotel’s reception area. There will be a food area, which will allow customers to build their own salads, pizzas and sandwiches. There’s also a vodka bar in the works, with Green Tree hoping to cater to the suit-and-tie crowd more than the jersey-and-flip-flop crowd.
Melloul said they spent some time debating whether to gear the remodel toward embracing the area’s Route 66 heritage or go for a higher-end upgrade. August’s Route 66 International Festival 2012 sealed the deal, he said, with disappointing turnouts and dwindling hope of making Victorville a significant destination for travelers of the Mother Road.
The remodel underway now is just the first step, Melloul said. Once the reception and food areas are complete, they will begin an overhaul of Green Tree’s 200 guest rooms.
Although the Route 66 festival earned robust profits, crowds indeed were smaller than anticipated because a heat wave and overoptimistic projections by its public-relations flack.
It should be noted that the Green Tree Inn, the official host hotel of the festival, did itself no favors with its dingy rooms and balky or nonexistent air conditioning during the event.
Melloul hopes to have all the renovations finished in time for the motel’s 50th anniversary. It’s just too bad they weren’t done a little earlier.
Not sure how inadequate service, almost every room having a/c issues, the coffee shop not being open in the afternoon, the bar not being open until night time, and local monthly renters everywhere, translates into sealed the deal for them? When the bar was open and had entertainment, it was packed full. They had a fancier so called high end steak restaurant, but it was empty!
Suit & Tie crowd they say, it’s Victorville, where’s the Suit & Tie crowd coming from? I’ll believe it when anyone sees it. The rooms looked like they were 30 years old from their last renovation, and hadn’t been maintained for years. You can’t sleep in the coffee shop Melloul, I’d start where 200 of your worst problems are, the rooms.
The turn out might have been affected by the heat or the distance for some, but that had nothing to do with how bad the hotel was. We wished we had actually stayed at a REAL motel, the New Corral, which we were sure had to be better. We ate somewhere else anyway, because nothing was open at the hotel, so why not get a nice room, and we paid for a two room kitchenette suite mind you. Next time I’ll trust my instincts, and stay at a REAL Route 66 motel. Victorville treated everyone great, had a great time, but it was the Green Tree that embarrased them.
New Corral, you just keep making your own improvements, including a website with reservations, and you’ll be the one filled with roadies all year long – goodbye Green Tree Inn!
The disappointment was mutual.
I wonder if this remodeling is in addition to the “…$900,000 construction upgrade project…” that, according to a message in the Route 66 Yahoo group, was begun “In support the of Festival…”? And southern California suit-and-tie crowd? Didn’t know there was one.
This is the desert there is NO shirt & tie group to draw from. It is the folks traveling and Route 66 tours or nothing.
They no longer have our old cars, gas pumps or other Route 66 items, they are all back at the California Route 66 Museum.
Good luck to them on making this place an attraction for the Hollywood crowd.
The first thing I would remodel is their ATTITUDE.
As one who works in a Route 66 motel, I can tell you that you don’t let your guests dictate what type of motel you run. You must DECIDE TO BECOME a Route 66 destination point, then WORK to make it so. Look at what the Patels have done with the Wigwam Motel, for example. Furthermore, Victorville the destination for higher-end travel? That sounds like they are totally disconnected with the tourism in their area. Unbelieveably, I agree with Jim — their attitude needs an overhaul or they won’t have visitors, Route 66 or otherwise, period — which will be very sad.