Akua Motor Inn, Anaheim, CA (motel)

Name:Akua Motor Inn
Type:motel
Street:1018 E. Orangethorpe Avenue
City:Anaheim
State:CA
Zip:92801
country:USA
Phone:(714) 871-2830
Status:operational

Description:
Formerly the Akua Motor Hotel, the Akua Motor Inn boasts clean and comfortable rooms at a reasonable rate.

I thought I'd fit some urban archaeology into my weekend, so I stopped by the Akua Motor Inn on my way to Disneyland on Saturday.

First, the post card from the Akua Motor Hotel.

Now my pictures from Saturday. It was pretty early in the morning when I arrived. The insanely cool sign and the beautiful porte-cochere are long gone as well as the outrigger and the tiki. At least the a-frames are still there.

Thanks for posting these Kate. Somehow I always get a kick out of how the palm trees change from old to current pictures like these.

A lot of times in early renderings or photos, the palm trees are street scale next to the building. But in modern pics (if they're still there at all) the same trees are often just sticks extending up, with the ball of fronds way up out of the frame. Time marches on!

-Randy

One of my favorite postcards. I have been looking for the other one with the torches lit that is in the BOT.

Here is a matchbook from The Palms in the Jungle that was next door to the Akua.

Here is a link to the website.

http://www.akuamotorinn.com/

DC

Nice job Kate. Here's a matchbook from my collection with a nice little rendering on the front.

While on family vacation this week in Anaheim I was able to slip away in the early morning for some urban Tiki archeology. This was one of two temples close by.

The owners were very friendly and the place is clean and well maintained. They said they were going for a Japanese Garden type atmosphere. I told them Japanese Garden is good but Tiki is better and showed them the picture in Tiki Road Trip. They were impressed.

Here is another nice vintage photo of the motel.

Photo by Lou Locantore of Costa Mesa Photography

These rocks some how survived over the years.

[ Edited by: abstractiki 2010-06-22 22:02 ]

We stayed there on a 1977 Disneyland trip when I was 10. I chose it myself out of the AAA guide book. I was a Tiki fan even at 10.

Around 1965 we took a trip to Disneyland and while driving around I believe this was the Motor Hotel I saw. Though we already had a motel I got my dad to stop here so I could get a postcard and any matchbooks or other stuff they could give me. Well this is just the long way to say I ran across a design for their great original sign so here it is...

[ Edited by: tikicoma 2019-01-18 01:19 ]