Sapphire Palms Motel, The Entrance

A statue stands alone in the carpark of the Sapphire Palms Motel at The Entrance. Palm trees rise behind it into the night sky, their fronds catching the spill light from the motel's signage. The statue is plaster, classical in line, lit harder on the front than the back. Beyond it, the low silhouette of the motel building stretches across the lot, a single fluorescent fitting outside one of the rooms throwing pale light onto the asphalt. The carpark is empty. There is no traffic on the road. The motel office is dark.

The Entrance sits on the northern run of Hotel Motel 101, the sweep up the Central Coast. The series photographed 101 traditional Australian motor inns across three runs out of Sydney over 2018, mostly in the small hours of the morning when the carparks were empty and the signs were doing the lit work. Inclusion was the typology test. Drive-thru reception, parking in front of the rooms, low rise. Statues, palms, and tropical landscaping like the Sapphire Palms set are part of what survived from a postwar moment when an Australian motel sold its location through its forecourt. The forecourt is still here. The cars are not.