The motel buildings facing the Blue Ridge Parkway in the mountain pass dubbed Tuggles Gap were constructed in the 1940s. Founded as a family business with just ten guest cabins, a small dining room, and a couple of gas pumps, great hospitality has been served up at this scenic spot in the Appalachian Mountains for well over eighty years.

Roadside inns have a history going back to a time well before automobiles, asphalt, and traffic lights. As long as people have been traveling, there have been nearby places to rest, eat, and recharge their modes of transport – whether it be camel, stagecoach, or family station wagon. The establishment of the Roman road system in Europe two thousand years ago prompted a need for convenient food and lodging, as well as fodder and stabling for travelers’ horses. There are still centuries old accommodations operating along those ancient routes that have operated under the terms inn, guesthouse, hotel, lodge, public house, pub, and more.

Taverns in Colonial America served as the earliest hotels, as well as gathering places for the local community. In populated areas, taverns gave way to larger hotels and more modern hospitality businesses flourished along busy train routes in the 19th century. In the 1920s, America embraced car culture and the ‘road trip’ was born through the post WWI auto camping craze. The American devotion to freedom, along with its growing population, birthed the family vacation and the demand for modern roadside accommodation steadily increased.

Auto camps evolved into properties with basic structures and businesses calling themselves Camp Courts, Lodge Courts, Motor Courts, and Motor Lodges began to pop up.  The words motor and hotel were combined to create the word motel when the services provided at these rustic camps improved to resemble those offered at modern hotels.  By 1947 in the United States, 22,000 motor court “motels” were in operation, with Tuggle’s Gap being one of them. The number of motels in service had doubled by 1950 to serve twenty two million vacationers in the post WWII baby boom era. The car-centric accommodation model would surpass hotels in consumer demand by 1951.

Tuggle’s Gap’s first heyday was in the 1950s and 1960s when it was a new, modern place to stay while traveling along the Blue Ridge Parkway. This part of the Parkway’s plateau section was completed in 1938 which is the same year a small store was erected in Tuggle’s Gap by four local alleged moonshiners. The next generation ran the motel and restaurant, and lived on the property from when it was built until the mid 1980s.

Fast forward to 2023 and Tuggle’s Gap Roadside Inn is once again a new, modern place to stay while traveling along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Guest comments on the newly renovated rooms often point to how the room designs walk the line between modern convenience and vintage charm. The location and proximity to the Parkway is truly one-of-a-kind, proving the site’s worthiness of the meticulous renovation it underwent in 2021-2022.  Those who witnessed the previous rooms, and see their current condition after the renovation are amazed. The newest innkeeper relishes those moments and reactions.

The father/son ownership team of Björn and Nick Bieneck exhausted themselves and went above and beyond when bringing the historic property up to a new standard in the first eighteen months of ownership. The elder Bieneck brought decades of business experience to the project while the younger brought his passion and experience in providing fine hospitality. One of Nick’s first jobs was at a Holiday Inn Holidome in Fredericksburg, Virginia in the 1990s when he was a teenage bellhop. He went on to work at several properties and studied the hotel business formally in college before moving to Switzerland at age twenty to work in the renowned Swiss hospitality industry. According to Nick, him and his father are trying to bring first-class service to the Inn expressing, “For me, running a little place like this is a dream come true.” He commented and added “doing this with my dad with input from the rest of my family, really makes it a special experience.  What an opportunity I’ve got here!”

All the guestrooms feature a beautiful wooden ceiling, original hardwood floors, new windows and doors, smart TVs, and dedicated wi-fi access points for fiber optic internet, as well as individual heating and air conditioning systems. The bedding and furniture is all premium, the towels are plush, and the luxury mattresses provide a great night’s sleep. The bathrooms have also been doubled in size!

In early spring 2023, the difficult decision to step away from the full service restaurant business at Tuggle’s Gap Inn was made despite the successful menu and demand for the local eatery.  Staffing at the remote location had always been difficult. Compounding this natural difficulty is that many service  workers moved on to jobs in other industries because their jobs were locked down in 2020. Many of those people have not returned to the service industry and the service industry is still suffering from that loss. However, the situation offered the opportunity to focus on the hotel business and the guest experience.

To substitute some of the restaurant’s service, every overnight guest is provided a made-to-order country breakfast from a selection of items previously offered on the restaurant’s breakfast menu. Breakfast is ordered during the weekdays with a full breakfast buffet available on the weekends. It is even open to the public!

The owners are also planning to host some special event dinners this year, with the hope of getting back to regular meal services spring of 2024. As Nick said, “we are making steps to get back to lunch and dinner service, we just had to make sure that we had a solid footing in the hotel business after the exhausting experience of running the restaurant while renovating and opening the hotel, retail, and gas sides of the business.”

When it comes to hospitality, customer reviews can speak for themselves: “This is the true roadside inn experience – stayed here as a couple traveling on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It felt cozy, fun and somewhat adventurous as a stop-off after a long drive, like a true motel Est. 1938 except with much better amenities.”  “What a fabulous place to stay.” and “New owners have transformed this place.”

Tuggle’s Gap Roadside Inn

Nick Bieneck and Björn Deineck

3351 Parkway Lane Sout, Floyd, VA

www.TugglesGap.com

facebook.com/TugglesGap