About Motel 6 East Row Historic District

Owned and founded by two local building contractors, Motel 6 first opened in Santa Barbara, California. Lead by partners Paul Greene and William Becker, the hotel cleverly took its name from the initial room rate per night the hotel charged during its first operation, $6. Fifty years later, Motel 6 has over 1,300 branches across Canada and the United States.

Becker and Greene wanted to provide a low-cost hotel that could serve as an alternative to the major hotel brands during the 1960’s, such as Holiday Inn. The partners specialized in low-cost housing and were able to create a hotel plan that would compete with the quality and the price of the current hotels America had during that era. Motel 6 took two years of conceptualization to be able to cut costs in areas possible. The effort these founders invested in Motel 6 paid off. This “no-frills” hotel materialized into one of the biggest hotel accommodations available in America.

Unique to the Motel 6 brand, there was no onsite restaurant available in the first hotel launches in 1962. Up to this day, most of the Motel 6 branches have no on-site dining available, but with plenty of restaurants located nearby.