YORK BEACH, Maine — For the first time in its 70-year historic previous, the iconic beachfront Nevada Motel all through from Prolonged Sands Seashore is within the market.
The motel at 141 Prolonged Seashore Ave. will not be potential to miss, with its distinctive type, eye-catching good teal trim, ocean views and, higher of all, the pliability to maneuver guests to a additional nostalgic interval — definitely one in every of value, simplicity and small-but-mighty family-run operations.
Generations of households have grown up visiting this motel, which is presently listed available on the market at $2.75 million by Keller Williams Coastal Realty. Alongside the company are three generations which have saved the motel working since its distinctive opening in 1951.
Henry de la Pena was the motel’s distinctive proprietor. He named it after the U.S. Navy ship he served on in World Battle II, the united statesS. Nevada, based mostly on his obituary. Henry even designed the motel to resemble the flybridge of a battleship, based mostly on his son, Paul de la Pena.
Paul acknowledged his father left the Navy in 1947 and was impressed by a go to to Florida, the place his sister-in-law’s husband had opened a motel in Pompano Seashore. Henry de la Pena received right here once more to Maine with the considered opening a motel of his private in Wells.
Then he found York.
“After they took a visit up proper right here, they often received right here throughout the nook, he was like, ‘Oh, that’s it, that’s the place,’ after which he purchased the empty lot in 1951,” acknowledged Paul de la Pena.
Motor resort, a piece of Maine historic previous
A set of devastating wildfires in 1947 — which grew to grow to be typically referred to as the “Yr Maine Burned” — catalyzed the motel commerce’s takeoff in Maine, based mostly on the New England Historic Society.
In the intervening time, Maine was 90% forested and unequipped to take care of the unprecedented wildfire season the state confronted. 2 hundred fires consumed 1 / 4 of 1,000,000 acres of Maine forest between Oct. 13 and Oct. 27 that yr, wiping out 9 entire cities. In York County, the fires destroyed most of the properties in Shapleigh and Waterboro, and then consumed swaths of Alfred, Lyman, Newfield, Kennebunk, Kennebunkport, Arundel, Dayton, Wells, Biddeford and Saco. In all, the the 1947 fires destroyed 851 properties and 397 seasonal cottages, leaving 2,500 people homeless, based mostly on the historic society.
As communities in Maine rebuilt inside the wake of the 1947 fires and vehicles took on rising significance in American life, motels — transient for “motor resorts” — proliferated up and down the coast of Maine, as they did all by way of the US.
By 1951, about 50,000 motels and motor courts had been working nationwide, and the commerce peaked in 1961 with about 61,000 motels nationwide, based mostly on the historic society. Within the current day, you’ll uncover possibly 1 / 4 of those motels nonetheless in operation, the society gives.
“The mom and pop motel fell to motel chains like Trip Inn and Biggest Western, then to low value resorts like Hampton Inn and Marriott,” the society continued. “Nonetheless many nonetheless cherish the retro comfort and luxury — to not level out the individuality — of the mom-and-pop motel.”
A little bit of family historic previous
Paul de la Pena acknowledged among the many comparable households from throughout the nation have returned each summer time season to the modestly priced Nevada Motel with their spouses, children, grandchildren and so forth. Some have even rented out the exact same room each go to, to relive the experience and create new reminiscences.
“We’re middle-income. We aren’t massive and fancy. Nonetheless we’re truly clear, and we’ve been a family-friendly place your complete time,” Paul acknowledged.
Three generations of de la Penas have cleaned rooms, washed mattress sheets, scrubbed loos and helped guests the least bit hours of the night, with kids chipping in since that they had been about 10 years earlier. Paul acknowledged he began working for his father, monitoring beachgoers who paid to park inside the lot behind the motel.
Shortly thereafter, he graduated to cleaning rooms and moved on to doing laundry and serving to shoppers. His mom taught him and his siblings discover ways to make beds, and their father taught them discover ways to mow the backyard. Paul would get a working start to crank up the earlier rotary mower, he acknowledged.
Up until highschool, Paul de la Pena and his two siblings moved backwards and forwards from York to Pompano Seashore, Florida. They’d start college in York in September by way of the highest of October, then they’d swap to a Florida college until April 30, after which swap once more to York. That didn’t work out correctly, Paul acknowledged, so the family decided in the long run to settle in York.
The heights of some youngsters who grew up on this motel — Jeanette, Tyler, Catey, Ashley, Laura, Jack, Charlie and others — are recorded with pale black and orange strains on a wall that divides the motel office lobby from the repairs closet and dwelling quarters, with markings courting once more larger than twenty years.
The mattress inside the office the place Paul would rest, so he might assist his shoppers the least bit hours of the night not has a sheet or a pillow, solely mud and bins able to be filled with seven a few years value of reminiscences.
Upon graduating from York Extreme School, Paul and his siblings settled in Florida, nonetheless Paul moved once more to York full-time in 1986 after his mother, Maria, died, leaving his aged father to run the enterprise by himself. Since then, Paul acknowledged he has not had a single day without work within the summertime.
Henry de la Pena labored the doorway desk of the motel until he was 92, and he died in 2015 at 96, leaving the enterprise to his three children: Paul, Edward and Jeanette Prues. Edward and Prues nonetheless private the property, and Paul continues to run it for the family, alongside alongside along with his partner, Janet, and until recently, his two children.
For just a few years, Paul gave up points others would possibly take for granted, like with the power to go eat lunch exterior on a incredible summer time season day. This yr, over the Fourth of July, Paul and Janet had been able to exit to lunch for the first time ever by way of the busy season.
A final summer time season on the Nevada’s helm
This summer time season was seemingly going to be the ultimate season of working the Nevada for 65-year-old Paul de la Pena, who acknowledged he consider to retire after so many summers working the family enterprise.
Lots of the repairs work and day-to-day operation was handled by Paul and Janet, nonetheless that that they had on a regular basis employed 4 or 5 extreme schoolers within the summertime to work on the motel. This summer time season, nonetheless, not one explicit individual utilized for a job — a reflection, possibly, of the nationwide worker shortage impacting many firms this yr inside the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
After years of dedicating his life to this motel, Paul de la Pena acknowledged he took the hiring woes as a sign that it was lastly time for him to maneuver on. The assumption had been a really very long time coming in an commerce that requires numerous sacrifice, he acknowledged.
The two-story, 21-unit motel now sits empty, apart from Paul de la Pena allowing just some shut household and mates members to stay.
Paul often soaks up his ultimate days on the Nevada’s helm by sitting on the porch, smoking a cigarette and waving to the varied acquainted faces strolling by the idyllic entrance backyard. Although he acknowledged he’s making an attempt forward to retirement, he’ll take up that unbeatable view for as long as he can. He has a entrance row seat to the seashore, finally.
“I took it for granted on account of it’s all I’ve ever acknowledged,” Paul acknowledged.
A “available on the market” sign went up three weeks up to now. Since then, Paul has fielded fairly just a few calls from shoppers who’ve returned for as many as 4 a few years, asking why he was selling the place. One man confirmed up whereas the motel was closed and acknowledged he remembered Paul from when he was in diapers, sitting on the doorway backyard once more inside the early Sixties. This place is packed filled with reminiscences.
Just some affords, numerous curiosity
The outpouring from people who’ve reached out to tell him how explicit the Nevada is to them has been a shock, Paul acknowledged. A flood of suggestions on social media neighborhood pages, calls, emails and different individuals stopping in to say their goodbyes has been eye opening, he added.
Paul acknowledged he’s already had just some affords submitted from potential shoppers, and a number of other different people have toured the motel.
Although the family, their former guests and totally different motel admirers have expressed a hope {{that a}} purchaser will come alongside and protect the attract of the quaint motel intact, the overall architectural developments inside the area would possibly degree to utterly totally different state of affairs, Paul acknowledged.
Troy Williams, the itemizing agent for the property, acknowledged he himself labored on the Nevada whereas rising up in York. Williams acknowledged he believes it might take a selected explicit individual to maintain up the attract of the motel. That being acknowledged, with solely a recent coat of paint, the rooms would nearly lease themselves, he acknowledged.
“He’s not at all wished to worry about selling … the place is iconic and quintessential to the town,” Williams acknowledged.
Williams acknowledged one of the best ways he feels selling this native treasure is hundreds like one of the best ways he felt when he listed his private dad and mother’ residence in York, the place the place he had grown up.
Up until 4 summers up to now, precise property prices alongside Prolonged Sands Seashore had remained comparatively common, nonetheless they have been rising significantly recently as demand for oceanfront properties intensifies, Williams acknowledged.
Paul de la Pena acknowledged the COVID-19 pandemic pressured him to ponder the reality that he is not invincible, and he received right here to the conclusion that he didn’t have to spend the rest of his summers tied to a motel 24 hours a day, seven days per week.
Paul acknowledged he and his partner, Janet, will retire in York, and he’ll return to a couple of his favorite actions he couldn’t do whereas working the motel, like fishing and searching, two beloved hobbies he gave up when his kids had been in college and he couldn’t go to Florida. Lastly, Paul acknowledged, he needs of shifting to Puerto Rico, nonetheless he nonetheless has to steer Janet.
Stepping out of the Nevada Motel one ultimate time will most likely be a bittersweet transition, Paul acknowledged.
“It’s sad to see it go, nonetheless it’s time to maneuver on,” Paul de la Pena acknowledged.
