FORT LITTLETON, Pa. — The Downes Motel honorably held its position along the Tussey Mountain ridge for more than 60 years. But, in 2001, the motel’s 97-year-old proprietor died and her grandson Mark C. Downes had to close its doors. The “O,” “E” and “S” have fallen from the motel’s roof; the white paint has peeled from the room doors, and the flowers no longer bloom under a fading sign that reads: “Downes Motel #1 — We accept all major credit cards.”
With the mountain backdrop framed by a perfect blue sky, the old place exudes nostalgia for a more innocent time, beckoning you to imagine what it was like to stay overnight in its heyday. And it begs the question: Why would this family abandon their business? Who shuts the doors one day and never goes back?
It’s not just here. Abandoned businesses and homes slowly decay everywhere across this country, in urban neighborhoods, suburbs, exurbs and rural areas — grand old mansions, more modest brick houses, ranch homes, practical farmsteads.
Businesses are not immune to this ghosting of property: Empty restaurants, florist and auto-body shops, beauty salons and motor lodges like the Downes Motel line main streets and rural roads in cities, towns and boroughs across this country, like scenes out of an apocalyptic-zombie movie.
Most of the time, no one is left to tell the story of what happened — except this time.
The Downes family once was so busy with travelers along the Pennsylvania Turnpike that they had two locations on either side of US Route 522 right off the Fort Littleton exit, Downes Motel #1 on the east, Downes Motel #2 on the west.
The hotels were clean, modest and convenient for folks traveling west from Philadelphia or east from Pittsburgh, next to three gas stations, a restaurant with home-cooked meals, a competing motel and the ability to get right back on the turnpike to experience the Great American Road Trip the next day.
In the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, Fort Littleton boomed; tourists used it regularly to stop overnight, and people who lived had good industrial jobs. Yet Fort Littleton today isn’t much more than just an interchange.
Grandson Downes still works hard to keep Downes Motel #2 alive. He left behind a career as a golf professional to help his mother keep up the remaining motel.
On a recent spring day, as he tinkered with a riding mower at the edge of the spot, he had already put in six hours of work at a farm a few miles away, caring for its animals.
“That’s my second job,” he said. “My first one is to keep my family’s business running.” But he candidly admitted that the motel’s ability to make a profit has eluded him for years.
The motel is immaculate — the rooms scrubbed clean from top to bottom, two chairs placed outside each room’s door — and holds a certain midcentury charm that chain motels and hotels lack.
“Power-steering marked the beginning of the end of our business,” he said. “It made cars easier and less fatiguing to drive, so people could travel for more hours, for longer distances — and they started to pass by the Fort Littleton exit.
“We went from being booked-up in both motels, down to barely getting by,” he said. When his grandmother died (she still worked at the two motels), he shut the doors to Downes Motel #1.
Motel #1 stares down at her remaining sister from a sharp curve in the highway, as Downes explains how he does what he can to make ends meet: “Trout and deer hunting season help. So does this annual Woodstock-like concert for Christians, called Creation . . . I get by, but I have no profit.”
His reviews on Trip Advisor are exceptional, and deservedly so — the place is spotless.
It’s the ticking of the clock that is his enemy.
Sometimes people just walked away; sometimes the families couldn’t bear to sell the old home to strangers after their parents passed, and so they “loved” the home to death.
The old Phillips 66 gas station across the street is abandoned. So is the former Arco station next door. The house next to that? Well, it’s been abandoned since the ’60s.
Downes says it wasn’t one thing that caused business here to die: “It never really is with these things.”
Instead, he points to a steady downpour of environmental regulations that forced the gas stations to dig up their underground tanks, and that forced him to exhume the motel’s septic system and close its small swimming pool, at profit-killing expense — along with the death of the road trip and the changing habits and tastes of travelers.
He isn’t bitter, just resigned: “Eventually I’ll have to close. I can’t continue on like this.”
Other abandoned homes and businesses are visible with surprising frequency all along Route 522, as it winds its way from Powhatan, Va., to Warfordsburg, Pa.
Ditto along the Lincoln Highway: Just outside Breezewood, Pa., alone, seven abandoned businesses in a row gather dust as tractor-trailers and passenger vehicles rush past.
It isn’t just a rural plague, either. The US Census Bureau has found 48,000 abandoned homes within the boundaries of Baltimore; a drive-through quickly shows sad facades with broken windows and missing doors encompassing entire city blocks.
In New York state they call these “zombie buildings,” and there are thousands; the Great Recession of 2008 led to a flood of homeowners walking away from homes or businesses as they stared at foreclosure.
The Census Bureau estimates that millions of homes have been vacated across the country.
Sometimes people just walked away; sometimes the families couldn’t bear to sell the old home to strangers after their parents passed, and so they “loved” the home to death. Sometimes the last family member died and no one else wanted the old place; sometimes it was the surrounding neighborhood that died.
And then there are instances like the Downes family, who lived that dream for several generations. They didn’t get rich, but they worked hard and, for a time, found a way to make a living.
“Sometimes things just end,” said Downes, walking back toward the shed where his lawnmower waited. “Sometimes things just outlive their usefulness.”