Madonna Inn
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| Madonna Inn | |
|---|---|
 The Madonna Inn | |
 | |
| General information | |
| Town or city | San Luis Obispo, California |
| Country | United States 35°16′03″N 120°40′29″W / 35.26750°N 120.67472°W |
| Completed | 1958 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect(s) | Alex Madonna and Phyllis Madonna |
The Madonna Inn is a flamboyant motel in San Luis Obispo, California. Opened for business in 1958, it quickly became a landmark on the Central Coast Of California. The Inn was created by Alex Madonna, who died in April 2004, and his wife, Phyllis. It is a monument of unremitting kitsch, with a semi-Swiss-Alp exterior and lavish common rooms accented by pink roses, Western murals, and hammered copper. Each room in the Madonna Inn is uniquely designed and themed. Its famed rock waterfall urinal is a fixture along California's Central Coast. Many tourists come to visit the urinal, to the embarrassment of males who genuinely need to use the facilities.
History
Madonna Inn opened as a simple motel in December, 1958, after the completion of its first twelve rooms. Demand was sufficient to expand to forty rooms during 1959, and the Inn facility was constructed in 1960.[1]
In 1966, the Inn's original units were burned to the ground in a dramatic fire. It reopened a year later, and by the end of the decade, all of the rooms had been rebuilt in all their luridness as they are known today. There are 109 rooms.
Back in 1982, the Madonna Inn was already world-renowned and the New York Times interviewed Alex Madonna about his eponymous creation. "Anybody can build one room and a thousand like it," he defended with pride. "I want people to come in with a smile and leave with a smile. It's fun. What fun do you think Paul Getty got out of his life."
Room names
Madonna made sure to cater to all ranges of tastes and included rooms with such unusual names as the Yahoo, Love Nest, Old Mill, Kona Rock, Irish Hills, Cloud Nine, Just Heaven, Hearts & Flowers, Rock Bottom, Austrian Suite, Cabin Still, Old World Suite, Caveman Room, Elegance, Daisy Mae, Safari Room, Highway Suite, Jungle Rock, American Home, Bridal Falls and the Carin. Some rooms are grouped in themes. For example, Ren, Dez, and Vous are a play on the French phrase for "appointment," Rendezvous. Merry, Go, and Round are an obvious reference to the amusement ride, or carousel.
In popular culture
In the 1977 film Stunts (film) (filmed in and around San Luis Obispo), actor Robert Forster stays at the Inn, and one scene features the interior of his room.
The Inn is featured in Umberto Eco's book Travels in Hyperreality (1991). According to Eco, "the poor words with which natural human speech is provided, cannot suffice to describe the Madonna Inn...Let's say that Albert Speer, while leafing through a book on Gaudi, swallowed an overgenerous dose of LSD and began to build a nuptial catacomb for Liza Minnelli."
It is also featured in the film Aria (1987), in a segment titled "Rigoletto" from director Julien Temple. It starred Buck Henry, Beverly D'Angelo, Anita Morris, and an Elvis Impersonator with music from Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto.
In a 1994 episode of "The Simpsons" entitled "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy," Homer and Marge visit the "Aphrodite Inn," a parody of the Madonna Inn, in a doomed attempt to rekindle their romance. Homer notes that "the Pharaoh's Chamber has a vibrating sarcophagus" and Mayor Quimby is seen rushing into the lobby to announce that "the toilet is overflowing in the Caveman Room." The couple has to sleep on cots in a "Utility Room" containing mops and a wet/dry vacuum.
In 2007, the rock and roll band The Swirling Eddies recorded a song named after the Inn for their CD, The midget, the speck and the molecule. The song includes references to "The Caveman Room," printed sheets of Zebra Skin, rocks on the wall and a "urinal that looks just like a waterfall."
The Madonna Inn also provided the backdrop for an episode of ABC's reality series The Bachelor. In the season 14 episode that aired on January 25, 2010, pilot Jake Pavelka and the nine remaining women take a road trip up the California coast, visit the Oceano Dunes, and stay overnight at the Madonna Inn.[2]