Imagine the pitch to the investors:

"It's going to be a futuristic, state-of-the-art motel with every modern convenience from water beds to 8-tracks. The entire dining area will be covered in deep-pile pink and purple carpet. But wait - here's the best part. It will look like an abstract sculpture of a giant turkey. We'll bill it as a romantic getaway - and call it The Gobbler!"

Whether every excruciating detail of this complex was planned out in advance, or whether it just happened, or whether the interior design was given over to someone with, shall we say, marital ties to the largest investor, I don't know. I don't know much about this place beyond the pictures you have here. This is a brochure taken from the Hartwig Gobbler, a motel-bar-restaurant off I-94 in Wisconsin. The brochure dates from construction, which must have been in the late 60s. But I got the brochure on a trip in March of 1984, and the restaurant was as ghastly then as it is in the pictures. What the current state is, I don't know. Internet searches pull up no mention of this classic - although the architect, the flamboyantly named, echt-60s multi-material genius Helmut Ajango, still has a practice in the area.

This site is an appreciation of a lost slice of American architecture and design - a period when just about everything had run off the rails, and good taste, restraint and classic traditions were utterly abandoned. There was an informal architectural style called Googie, named for a coffee-shop chain in LA; the diners had heaps of rough stone, cantilevered roofs, odd modern touches side-by-side with kitschy anachronisms. Well, this is Post-Googie. The jet-age futurism of the 60s had turned into the cheap, Logan's-Run modernism of plastic chairs; the experimentation with different materials had ended up in a smothering expanse of mass-produced carpet. This is a style that can go absolutely nowhere. It's the look of the future for at least a week.

Obviously, this is not the official site of the Gobbler, and if any of the owners find this site offensive, I apologize. The opinions expressed here are my own, including the opinion that this is the ugliest, and somehow coolest, motel in America. That cannot be empirically proven, of course. It's just a hunch.

On further reflection, I take the "coolest" part back.

Since I posted this site in November of 1997, I've heard from Gobbler fans all around the country. In a way, I'm deeply gratified to learn that the Gobbler lives in people's memories, and that other folks have discovered its jaw-dropping banality through this site. On the other hand, I'm humiliated that everyone visted the first version of this site, which was a navigation mess, and had small pictures. I've rescanned, rewritten, added new shots and redesigned the site; it's now much easier to explore. Simply go Gobblin' as the sign exhorts, and you'll explore the entire motel. Or click on the links below if your previous visit was interrupted. NOTE: there are not only additional pictures in this version, there are Gobbler stories AND some Gobbler wallpaper you can slap on your PC if you choose. And remember to visit the Institute of Official Cheer when you're done; there's more drivel there than you can possibly imagine.

Thanks ~

J. Lileks Nov '99