Signs of life for local motel

In late March, workers were seen scurrying around and on top of the long-closed Apache Motel on Tucumcari's Route 66 corridor.

It turns out the motel, aka the Apache Inn, at 1106 E. Tucumcari Blvd. landed itself new owners about a year ago who are renovating it and plan to reopen it in late summer.

In a symbol of the motel's imminent rejuvenation, workers hooked up electricity to its massive neon sign. Dozens of more than 200 incandescent bulbs outlining the sign's edge lit up the night sky Wednesday - the first time in years it had been illuminated.

Owners Joanne Thompson and her business partner, Wade Dirr, both were based in Florida. Thompson recently bought a house on South Third Street in Tucumcari and moved there.

"I want to restore it as a motel," Thompson said of her recent acquisition during a phone interview Wednesday. "Obviously, we're going to be updating the bathrooms so they're walk-in showers with glass doors. It's going to be high-tech nice."

Using the motel's name as an inspiration point, Thompson said she wants rustic, Southwest-inspired décor that includes natural wood bedposts, cowskin and adobe walls.

She also wants to restore its huge neon sign, one of the largest on Route 66.

"Everyone who comes through town takes a picture of that sign," she said. "It is just iconic."

She said the condition of the Apache Motel was about what she expected. She said it remained structurally sound because of its concrete-wall construction.

She said she wants to earn a partial certificate of occupancy for the Apache within 17 weeks, which would be late July. Revenue from reopening a few rooms at the 22-room motel would be used to fix up the rest of the property.

Thompson said she and Dirr were part of a real-estate exchange group when the fateful moment happened about a year ago.

"That morning, someone raised his hand and said, 'I have a motel in Tucumcari, New Mexico, and I'll take anything for it,'" Thompson recalled. "I shot my partner a look, I pointed my finger at him, and he raised his hand: 'I've got two building lots in North Port, Florida.'

"We made the exchange. It took us all of five seconds to obtain the Apache Motel."

Thompson said she became excited once she began researching the property on Google Maps. She said the motel sitting between two restaurants - Kix on 66 and Del's - intrigued her.

She and Dirr flew to Denver, rented a car to travel to Tucumcari and talked to many townsfolk, including city officials and Tucumcari MainStreet director Connie Loveland.

"We thought of things where we might uplift the town and the people who are already in the trenches," Thompson said of her hour-long chat with Loveland. "The more I talk to people, the more inspired I get. We're going to get everybody involved (in the restoration) who has a sewing machine, can paint, whatever.

"I never, ever thought about moving to the desert or New Mexico, but there it was, and here I am."

A 2019 real estate listing on Loopnet.com for the Apache Motel indicated it was built in 1960.

Its sign once was black with a kokopelli figure at the top that later became a Native American's profile. An Oklahoma investment group bought the property in 2006 and rehabbed it, including repainting the sign white. It closed not long after that.

An examination of hundreds of images archived to Flickr, a photo-sharing website, indicates the Apache Motel's sign last had been lighted in late 2006.

Thompson said anyone with memorabilia, old photos or historical information about the Apache Motel should email her at [email protected].

Thompson said her background includes running a circa-1770 bed-and-breakfast in Massachusetts for 10 years, plus managing long- and short-term rentals. She acknowledged she is more of a "brick-and-mortar girl," while partner Dirr is "more of a paperwork kind of guy" who will stay in Florida.

"I love old things," she said. "I love to restore things. Ever since I've been a kid, I've loved to fix stuff up. I love to see things not bulldozed."

She said the timing of resurrecting a Route 66 motel during a time when the nation is struggling through a coronavirus pandemic wasn't lost on her.

"There are a lot of people waiting to be inspired," she said.