William Becker, the co-founder of Motel 6, the innovative low-budget motel chain launched in Santa Barbara in the early 1960s, has died. He was 85.
Becker, former chairman of the board of the Stockmen's Bank, based in Kingman, Ariz., died of a heart attack April 2 in a Kingman hospital, said his son, Tod Becker.
Becker and Motel 6 co-founder Paul Greene were Santa Barbara contractors when they decided to begin building motels offering rooms at bargain rates.
Becker had been inspired by a monthlong, cross-country car trip from Santa Barbara to his family's farm in Greenwich, N.Y., in the summer of 1960.
"Staying in motels across the country, you paid a high price and got poor lodging conditions," Tod Becker recalled Friday. "He thought, 'Why not build a nice motel offering clean rooms at a budget price?' "
Becker and Greene initially planned on charging $4 a room per night -- an amount that with high occupancy they figured would cover building costs, land leases, mortgages, managers' salaries and maid service -- but they quickly determined that was too low.
They considered charging $5 per night before finally settling on the $6 rate that inspired the motel's name.
The first Motel 6, a 54-unit complex near East Beach in Santa Barbara, opened in 1962.
"When we entered the business, we had the advantage of not knowing anything about it, so we weren't burdened by preconceived notions," Becker told the Wall Street Journal.
But they did have a background in building low-cost tract homes in the Lompoc area. And by building their motels with their own crews and equipment, according to a 1967 Newsweek story, they estimated that they saved 50% in initial construction costs.
Determined to keep costs as low as possible, Becker and Greene eliminated dressers, replaced closets with clothes racks and built shower stalls with rounded edges rather than corners to reduce cleaning time.
They also used no-iron sheets, foam drinking cups and coin-operated TVs (25 cents for six hours).
"We feel that this is the type of simple accommodation needed by travelers with families," Greene told the Santa Barbara News-Press in 1962. "It may cause a revolution in the business in the West, but we feel it has a great future."
By 1967, Motel 6 had 31 locations in California and four other Western states and in August of that year boasted an 89% occupancy rate, which was 23% higher than the national average.
