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Lenz Tourist Home / Homotel

505 E. Elm St., Lebanon, MO
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The William A. Lenz family built this large 14 room home in 1932 and operated it as a tourist home / motel until the mid 1970s. It was originally called the Lenz Tourist Home but by the late 1940s the name had changed to the Lenz Homotel and eventually to simply the Lenz Motel. In 2018, new owners bought and renovated the property, and now operate as a BnB called The Manor House Inn.

GPS: 37.680619,-92.653503

One of the murals at the Route 66 Plaza at Boswell Park features this vintage image of the Lenz Ho-Motel.

The large columns in the front once held signs "LENZ HOMOTEL on the upper portion". The property is located on Elm St. (Route 66) and Sherman Ave.,

An October 1932 newspaper article described the home when the Lenz family moved in that fall.

The living room dining room, kitchen and another bathroom were all on the main floor as well as two bedrooms for the family. An enclosed porch off the kitchen held the stairway to the basement. The porch also had a space for a "built-in Frigidaire", which I guess was refrigerator, or maybe a freezer or some combination of the two, at any rate it hadn't arrived by the time the family moved in.

The second floor contained six guest rooms, a drinking fountain in the hall and two shower baths. The second floor wasn't actually finished when the family took up residence on the main floor, but was expected to be finished the coming winter months.

Photo(s): 2016