Whimsical Windows - Lake Shore Smiles

This week's edition of architectural meme Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors takes us to a familiar subject, that of my Grandpa, Ralph I. Villers (1902-1981) of Steubenville, Ohio. He liked to take a lot of pictures wherever he traveled, perhaps to show others just where he had been. Here is the Summer of 1964 in the Windy City of Chicago, at the Lake Tower Motel. Long gone by a high rise condominium on the pricey lakefront on Lake Shore Drive, it shows a cool 1960s charm, with newer buildings way more glitzy but devoid of charm. Grandpa's smile in these B&W prints adds a element of his happiness in chronicling his travels...

Whimsical Windows - Sea Gull Motel

Vacations past seems to be a recurring theme for me, and so for Toby's meme Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors, it is the soft sand and rolling Atlantic waves at Brigantine Beach New Jersey, and a retro look at the Sea Gull Motel, next to the old Sea Gull Cottages (long gone) in two phases - under construction in 1965, with my grandmother getting her pic shot by my namesake grandfather with his German Exa SLR.

The next is in color in its pink stucco with my grandmother, just four years later in 1969. An efficiency motel with a kitchen, it was the only way our brood of seven kids could afford a vacation by avoiding restaurants every day. More time to play on the beach :)

We stayed there for vacation getaways in 1966, Labor Day 1967, 1968, 1969 and 1972. Current reviews of the place now are generally poor - but not in my childhood memories of surf, sand and sun...

Whimsical Windows - Vacations almost over

Toby hosts the delightful Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors where portals are the destination. Today I offer a digital print from 2003.

We are at our vacation motel, the Hyannis Inn, right in the middle of touristy Main Street on Cape Cod. The motel pool is inside and under cover out of the direct sun. The kids loved to play in the pool there as we do not have one at home. I chose this view to post as the windows are not so whimsical - but daughter Allegra has that satisfied look that all is fun in the water

Ah, vacations...we took more of them until the kids went to college. So, staycations are the rule these days, alas...