Coral Court Motel
Listed on the National Register in 1989 and bulldozed anyway in 1995, the Coral Court was Route 66’s most notorious motor court — glazed yellow brick, streamlined curves, and a private garage behind every unit for guests who preferred not to be seen.
At a glance
Developer John Carr opened the Coral Court Motel on Watson Road (U.S. Route 66) in Marlborough, Missouri, a St. Louis suburb, in 1941, with architect Adolph L. Struebig’s original design expanded by Harold Tyrer in 1946. Built in Art Deco and Streamline Moderne style, the motel’s glazed brick units, curved canopies, and — most distinctively — private attached garages for every room made it an instant Route 66 landmark, and eventually one of American roadside architecture’s most mourned losses.
Key facts
- Built: 1941 (Adolph L. Struebig); expanded 1946 (Harold Tyrer)
- Style: Art Deco and Streamline Moderne
- Address: 7755 Watson Road, Marlborough, Missouri
- Heritage: NRHP #89000311 (April 25, 1989) — demolished 1995 despite listing
- Peak size: 77 rooms by the 1960s, up from 20 at opening
- Surviving fragment: One original cabin, relocated to the National Museum of Transportation, St. Louis
History
The Coral Court opened in 1942 with twenty rooms and grew to seventy-seven by the 1960s, riding Route 66’s peak decades as America’s premier cross-country highway. Its private garages, built into each unit, gave the motel a reputation for discretion that made it both a favorite for road-tripping families and, more notoriously, for guests who valued privacy for other reasons — fugitive Carl Austin Hall briefly checked in on October 6, 1953, days after the Bobby Greenlease kidnapping.
Interstate 44 bypassed this stretch of old Route 66 in late 1972, and the Coral Court’s business declined through the following decades. After John Carr’s death in 1984 the property deteriorated further, and despite a 1989 National Register listing and an active Coral Court Preservation Society, the motel was demolished in 1995. A 45-unit housing development, Oak Knoll Manor, occupies the site today. One original cabin was saved, dismantled, and reassembled inside the National Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, opened in 2000 alongside a period 1941 Cadillac.
What you see today
Nothing remains on the original Watson Road site — it is now residential housing. The architecture survives only in the relocated cabin at the National Museum of Transportation: glazed, colored brick in curved Streamline Moderne massing, with the attached private garage that made the Coral Court’s design so recognizable and so useful to guests wanting an unseen car and an unseen face.
Practical information
- Status: Original site demolished; one cabin preserved as a museum exhibit
- Where to see it: National Museum of Transportation, 2933 Barrett Station Road, St. Louis, Missouri
- Original site today: Oak Knoll Manor housing development, Watson Road, Marlborough
Getting there
The preserved cabin is on display at the National Museum of Transportation in Kirkwood/St. Louis, about 20 minutes from downtown St. Louis by car. The original Watson Road site is nearby but holds no trace of the motel today.
Nearby
- National Museum of Transportation — houses the surviving Coral Court cabin
- Historic Route 66 corridor through greater St. Louis — Watson Road itself
Sources
- Wikipedia: Coral Court Motel
- National Register of Historic Places, NRHP #89000311 (April 25, 1989)
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