Archive for the ‘river’ tag
Tremont Motor Inn / Riverside Inn, 111 Knox Abbott Drive: September 2014 4 comments
The first phonebook listing I find for The Tremont Motor Inn is in the July 1958 book where the address is given simply as Hwy No 21 Cayce and the phone number is the old style AL 4-5121.
Later phonebooks would give the address with more specificity as 111 Knox Abbott Drive and update the phone number to 254-5121.
From its inception through 1984 the Tremont did not purchase a Yellow Page ad. In fact, the first one that I saw was in the February 1985 phonebook. This one, pictured above, gave the new phone number as 796-6240, indicating, I believe, a change of ownership.
The last listing I saw for the Tremont was in the February 1994/1995 phonebook. This was followed by the first listing for the Riverside Inn in the February 2002/2003 book, leaving an eight year gap. I presume the building was run under another flag during those years, but I would have to consult a city directory to find what it was, and did not have time on my last visit to the library.
The building was in a great location on a large property close to the river with a park-like expanse of walking paths, and I suppose it was quite nice for many years. Unfortunately, by the time my cousin booked a room in the fall of 2013 (to be close to USC for some seminars), she found it dirty and run-down to the point that she felt unsafe.
The actual tear down was quite leisurely, extending over a period of about four months. On my initial walk-through, I was unsure how much of the property was actually the motel, as there were some buildings out back that appeared to be in use by other businesses, but in the event it appears everything was demolished. For some reason, every time I went out to get pictures, I either got there late just as the sun was fading, or the day would be heavily overcast. There are a few bright shots, but that was the exception.
I'm not quite sure what the green carpeted area by the pool was. It almost looked like the motel had a little putting green, but I didn't see a hole there. Of course now the whole place is more or less a hole...
29 September 2014:
7 October 2014:
29 November 2014:
26 December 2014:
UPDATE 2 February 2015 -- Commenter TahoeChic pointed out an old Tremont postcard on Ebay, which I have bought and scanned, putting the image at the top of the page. Notice the differences in the property from the time of the postcard (which gives the "AL" prefix phone number, so it probably dates from the early 1960s) to now. For instance the big roadside sign was gone, the short brick wall along Knox Abbott drive had yet to be build, there was a canopy in the parking lot, the pool area was not enclosed and had a diving board, and it does not appear the the final front-office building had been built.
Commenter fourlizards found a Tremont key and took a picture, I have added that under the postcard.
Photosets: