PARIS TWP. − At Palmantier's Motel, $125 gets you a clean room, comfy bed and a welcome hug from owner Lorraine "Rainie" Sonntag.
Her legendary warm greeting spares her arthritic fingers from painful introductory handshakes. But truth be told, she just plain enjoys giving and getting hugs. After all, she is in the hospitality business.
She's run the classic motor inn for 16 years.
Usually, not from behind a desk.
Sonntag is housekeeper, friend, confidante, board game opponent, house mom, den mother and occasional chauffeur for her customers. She's even been known to whip up a community spaghetti dinner, on the house.
"She's done a great job with the place," said Matt Kiko of Kiko Auctions.
He's known Sonntag for years. He once auctioned her mom's Akron Turnpike Motel in Cuyahoga Falls. That's where Sonntag first learned the ins and outs of the lodging business. Kiko is also the one who sold a then-closed Palmantier's to Sonntag and her husband Earl in 2010.
"I just fell in love with this place," she recalled.
The Sonntags, though, are getting older. She's 67 and her husband is 72. An opportunity to retire near family in Medina recently cropped up. They decided now was as good a time as any to retire.
So, they turned to who else, but Kiko.
On Sept. 9, he'll offer the L-shaped, nine-unit motel, along with an adjacent duplex, in an absolute auction. Half the duplex is used as a bed and breakfast. The sale begins at 1 p.m. and is open to in-person and online bidders.
The motel, built in 1947, is on much firmer ground now than when the Sonntags paid $106,000 for it and initially struggled to pay bills.
The first few years, the Sonntags' son, Kevin, ran the motel. He's since moved into another career. Ever since, it's mostly the Sonntags and their daughter, Tracy, tending to the 3.25-acre property.
"We were so proud of what we did to the rooms back then," Rainie Sonntag said, leafing through a scrapbook with images of their early makeover handiwork.
Those efforts, in hindsight, were kind of embarrassing.
"What were we thinking?!" she said.
The somewhat tacky decor has since been updated. Her family, she said, has treasured every last nook and cranny of the motel, swimming pool, duplex they've called home and sprawling lawn.
"I'm really going to miss the customers the most," Sonntag said.
Many were repeat visitors who became like family.
A Minerva woman who rents a room with her out-of-town sister, to bond every few years. The "pepper people" who shared a recipe for pepper poppers. The "bread guy" who baked homemade loaves in the motel's community kitchen. The "bat people" who rented rooms during their environmental reviews of the NEXUS Pipeline project to ensure it didn't disturb federally protected bat species habitat.
Business boomed in the pipeline days a decade ago. Work crews spent months at a time in multiple units, or in half the duplex. Their companies paid the Sonntags lump sum checks for weeks at a time.
These days, it's busy in the summer, but slower in the winter.
All the regulars will likely miss the Sonntags, too.
Cupboard doors inside the community kitchen are plastered with hundreds of 'thank you' sticky notes and letters left by customers through the years. Those, Rainie Sonntag said, are not for sale.
"Truly the best stay & we will be back." "You rock, sooo clean." "Wishing you the best until we see you again." "This place is fantastic, love it!" "As much fun as visiting grandma's house!" "Comfy and cozy. Made my birthday great!" "I thank you for your help with my grandson and the phone." "I will miss your warm smile!" "Hugs from the owner! You don't get that at big corporate chains."
There are so many notes on those cupboard doors that new ones get stuck over top of old ones.
"It's kind of a dying thing," Kiko said of motor inns such as Palmantier's.
Nationwide, the number of motels peaked at about 64,000 in 1964. A half-century later, the number had dwindled to less than 16,000, according to Mark Okrant's book "No Vacancy: The Rise, Demise and Reprise of America's Motels."
However, Kiko said possibilities at the Palmantier's site are endless — the township has no zoning restrictions.
He said he's fielded numerous inquiries about the auction. So have the Sonntags, who've walked a few potential buyers through the motel, ahead of the sale. In Rainie Sonntag's mind, there's only one way to run the business.
Hands-on, living on-site in the duplex.
"I want to see you," she said. "I want to know who you are."
But she's heard from potential bidders who talk about being hands-off operators. They tell her Palmantier's can be an online business. No interactions, just transactions. Forget room keys and install keypad code locks.
"They said we'll do it like Vrbo," she said.
But who's going to clean the rooms? Who will tell customers not to flush their well water-supplied toilets when the electricity cuts out? Who will give them the royal treatment guests want?
Rainie Sonntag wonders all that.
"But who am I to say?" she said.
On auction day, she'll root for anyone who can carry on the tradition of lodging in an area bereft of options.
Palmantier's was on the main drag when it was built 79 years ago. Its 13371 Lincoln St. SE address is adjacent to a brick-paved section of Baywood Street, on the original route of the Lincoln Highway.
The 3,389-mile New York to San Francisco highway opened in 1913. It was the first transcontinental highway. In Stark County, it stretches from Minerva, southeast of the motel, through Tuscarawas Township to the west.
Palmantier's, though, is also as close to the middle of nowhere as you can get in today's Stark County. It's a 21-minute drive to the nearest Starbucks, 19 minutes to the closest Walmart and a half-hour to Target in the Belden Village area.
Only a few can claim ownership to Palmantier's.
Arba and Theresa Palmantier founded it. The original house on the property, now part of the duplex, dates to 1875. Sonntag said Palmantier descendants once told her the house served as an overnight lodging spot.
The Koontz family later ran the motel for three decades. They sold it to Scott Segeti on land contract in 2005. It had wound up back in the Koontz family, Sonntag said, when she bought it at auction in 2010.
Sonntag said Palmantier descendants shared something else with her.
"They'd thought about trying to buy it back," she said.
Ultimately, they decided the property held too much bad family karma.
Arba Palmantier died there of a heart attack in 1963. Five years later, his wife was struck and killed by a car — after she'd guided a truck driver to a parking spot across the street from the motel.
Reach Tim at 330-580-8333 or [email protected] X: @tbotosREP
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Stark County motel for sale is a slice of Americana on historic Lincoln Highway | Exclusive