page_title: Twin Bridges Motor Hotel
section_title: Operation as a motor hotel
hierarchical_section_title: Twin Bridges Motor Hotel / Operation as a motor hotel
caption_attribution_description: English: Detail showing the Twin Bridges Marriott as cropped from an archival photo dated 27 February 1965. Monochrome. Aerial photo showing the western short of the Potomac River, the landings of the Long Bridge (RF&amp;P Railroad) and 14th Street Bridge.
context_page_description: The Twin Bridges Motor Hotel, later known as the Twin Bridges Marriott was the first lodging facility operated by what would become Marriott International. It opened on about January 18, 1957, shortly before the second inauguration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and was demolished in 1990.
context_section_description: The motel was located in Arlington, Virginia, at the Virginia approaches to the 14th Street Bridge, almost directly across the Potomac River from the Jefferson Memorial in the District of Columbia.  From this position it had views of the U.S. Capitol and Washington Monument. Its address was 333 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington, Virginia. The motel was highly visible and under the aerial approaches to Reagan National Airport.
  At its opening, the motel comprised 365 rooms, each with two double beds and a black and white television set. Originally designed as a classic motel with six two-story buildings with exterior entrances, within a few years a 100-room addition of a 5-story tower was added with space for restaurants, meeting rooms, and a rooftop lounge. A new lobby was added, along with a swimming pool that could be converted to an ice rink in the winter. Original rates were $8 per night plus $1 for each person, with a maximum charge of $12. Check-in was outside so the clerk could see how many were in the guests' car. Clerks would then escort the guests to their room by bicycle.
  Because the Marriott Hotel chain did not yet exist, the hotel was operated as a Quality Courts motel (the precursor to Choice Hotels) for the first few years. Quality Courts was based in Washington, D.C., as well. With the construction of the Key Bridge Marriott Hotel just a few miles up the road in 1959, the moniker Marriott Motor Hotels was applied to both hotels.
  Its proximity to The Pentagon and the airport allowed it to profit from both. Bill Marriott later claimed that it was "one of the very first airport hotels in the country."
  On June 29, 1979, American musician Lowell George suffered a fatal heart attack while staying at the hotel.
caption: Aerial view from February 1967
exif: {"Image Tag 0x000B": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image Orientation": "Rotated 90 CCW", "Image Software": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image DateTime": "2020:05:18 21:37:35", "Image ExifOffset": "2242", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4516", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "15155", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2020:05:18 21:36:34", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2020:05:18 21:36:34", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}