One of Redford's original motels is in Cave City, Kentucky. The two on Route 66 are in Holbrook, Arizona and this site. Their phone number is For more information, visit their website. Email address:. Wigwam Motel. Video Here is a video tour of the Wigwam Motel site. Get Directions. In , Redford received a patent on the design, calling them Wigwam Villages because he felt it sounded better Teepee Villages. Lewis discovered the unique roadside motel when passing through town.
As part of the agreement, coin-operated radios were installed in the Holbrook Wigwam Village and every dime inserted for 30 minutes of play would be sent to Redford as payment.
Lewis operated the Wigwam Motel until closing it in after Interstate 40 bypassed downtown Holbrook. Two years after his death in , sons Clifton and Paul Lewis and daughter Elinor renovated the motel and reopened it in and the Lewis family continues to run and maintain Wigwam Village 6.
Her renowned business systems and automations allow her business to thrive while she travels with her husband of 21 years and two teenagers, squeezes in daily workouts , tries new recipes , embarks on ambitious craft projects, speaks at events, facilitates workshops , and leads online courses. The tepees stood as a beacon of simpler times. Most, if not all, were filled on summer nights by adults swimming in memories as kids complained about the lack of a pool.
The sameness was comforting, from the motel down to the people caring for it. The Wigwam remained a mom-and-pop operation, just as when it opened. That meant if you were a Lewis, your birth was also a job interview, duties to be assigned on an age-appropriate basis. When the motel reopened in , Karina Lewis Pack joined her siblings in the climb up the career ladder from sweeping to dusting to laundry and beyond. The Wigwam imparted life and business lessons you couldn't get in a classroom.
Still, when she graduated from high school, she put the Wigwam in the rear-view mirror, ready to see what the world had in store for her. She earned a degree in agribusiness at Arizona State University and married her childhood sweetheart, who was a pre-med student on his way to becoming an emergency-room doctor.
They started a family, welcoming six children over 12 years. His job took them to Kalamazoo, Mich. Life wasn't perfect, but it was pretty close. She listened to her father talk about retirement, how the Wigwam needed more energy than his year-old body could muster. Pack spoke with her husband about returning to Arizona. Yes, they'd established a good life in Klamath Falls, but their parents — all in Holbrook — weren't going to be around forever.
And then there was the motel. It didn't seem right for it to be in hands not belonging to a Lewis. In the summer of , the Pack clan returned to its roots — mostly to be closer to their parents, where their kids could get to know their grandparents. But also for the Wigwam.
It pulled at Karina, given its role in the Lewis family. And she did not want to disappoint her father, who'd devoted so much of his life to it.
But it was an adjustment. Her husband found a job at hospitals in Show Low and Winslow and the family settled in Holbrook just minutes away from the Wigwam.
Pack has put most of her six children to work, with the exception of her 2-year-old. Her 5-year-old son is on light duty, charged with looking under beds, since his stature puts him closest to the ground. Her father, now retired for more than a decade after 37 years at Northland Pioneer College, makes himself available for various chores, allowing Pack to pick up pointers from the master. He's taught her which tepees have the most reliable heaters, what to do when an AC unit suddenly quits, and where water is headed when a monsoon storm sweeps through.
Most importantly, Pack knows she can handle the motel once her father is done with putting the wigwams to bed. While there were some tough times during the Great Recession, business is nearly as good as when Route 66 tied America together. The motel is full most summer nights, thanks largely to an older crowd seeking a romantic version of the s.
Millennials visit for the kitsch, and a younger generation wants to see the inspiration for the Cozy Cone Motel, inhabitable traffic pylons in the Pixar movie "Cars. Winters are slower, though Pack said she'll fill half the units on weekends. And throughout the year, people stop by day and night to take photos of the lodging oddity. Business, she said, is good enough to get by. The family plans to stay awhile.
Pack and her husband are building a home within a few miles of the Wigwam, a perfect spot to put down roots. But he's worked hard, built it up. His father did the same for him. We'd come too far to let it go. At 35 years old, she's not too concerned about finding a successor. But the thought has crossed her mind, as it did with her father and his father before him.
When she wondered aloud who of her six children might be the next in line, 8-year-old Everett looked up from his video game. Facebook Twitter Email. Wigwam Motel: Family keeps Route 66 nostalgia alive Three generations of a family keep the lights on for those seeking a taste of Americana. Scott Craven The Republic azcentral. Show Caption.
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