Vintage Postcard – Tangerine Motel – Lake Wales, Florida

The Tangerine Motel
Cor.Route #60 and #17
Lake Wales, Florida
Located at the edge of Town. Modern, Air Conditioned, Electric Heat, Television. Near Shopping Center and Restaurants. 12 miles to Cypress Gardens, 3 miles to Bok Singing Tower, 6 miles to The Great Masterpiece, 2 miles to the Black Hills Passion Play and near “Spook Hill”. In the heart of the Citrus Belt.
Your Hosts — Joyce and Don Paulson

Curteichcolor 3-D Natural Color Reproduction (REG. U.S.A. Pat. Off.)
National Wesfield Co., Inc., Clearwater, Fla.
7C-K1320

This card is unused, but the date code on it would put it around 1957 production. It bears the logo as recommended by the American Travel Association.

The address is so non-specific. There are a number of small motels in the area, but none look just like it. I’m frustrated to not find a match after several attempts. If you know any information, please share!

Anyhow, Cypress Gardens is now a distant memory. Sounds like a great place, with wandering southern belles and ski shows. Read about it here. How cool is this…a 1956 home video from the water ski show! Simply delightful.

Here is the website for Bok Singing Tower.

Masterpiece Gardens, or The Great Masterpiece, was a very large mosaic reproduction of da Vinci’s Last Supper. The mosaic is long gone, removed to the Gustafson Fine Arts Center; read the story here. The land is now a religious retreat.

The Black Hills Passion Play was built in 1952 from a natural sinkhole. Apparently, a hurricane in 2004 demolished the site. This is a youtube video of what remains of the area; it has photos of what used to be as well.

According to Wikipedia, “Spook Hill is a gravity hill, an optical illusion where cars appear to roll up the spooky hill.” Here’s a video of the attraction.

There is an online obituary for Joyce here. She passed in 2012.

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Rest-A-Nite

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