Derelict Motel (Bakersfield California)

LeeP — Sat, 02 May 2026 14:12:43 GMT

I enjoy shooting abandoned/derelict buildings. This is a small motel on the northern edge of Bakersfield (California) likely built around World War II. It would have been the first motel travelers saw on Highway 99 as they entered town and it also would have been sufficiently out of town for it to have gotten local business as a "no-tell" motel. A freeway was built in the early 1960s that bypassed it, so for me, I grew up knowing it was a "no tell" motel given my grandmother's assessment of its ill repute. Things got worse for it and it became a druggy flop house that KCSO (Kern County Sheriff's Office) routinely busted and after that it was a pass-through house for trafficking illegal aliens that immigration busted with regular predictability. It's now boarded up and owned by the state. It says "no trespassing" but the gate is always wide open, so I did an impromptu drive-through shoot/documentation. I wanted to get it before it mysteriously burns to the ground (arson happens all the time locally to old buildings) or got bulldozed.

I may return and shoot it with my R8 and 15-30mm zoom.

Shot with a Canon R100 and 28mm RF lens.

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Derelict Motel (Bakersfield California)