In 2022, Lisa Lennox was visiting a friend in Stephenville, Texas, when she stumbled upon the Interstate Inn. The motel, on a highway an hour west of Fort Worth, had seen better days. The building was notorious with local police, and rooms rented for $40 a night. The property needed new plumbing and wiring, and asbestos had to be removed.

But Lennox immediately felt a connection to the property, with its funky design, including a giant sloped roof that screamed Space Age.

“These motels are very Americana,” she said. “They’ve got a really unique design. But they’re all in disrepair, and a lot of them are being torn down.” Lennox had no real experience in hospitality, but she’d traveled widely and knew what made a good hotel room. She bought the motel that year, took an online hotel management course at Cornell University and plans to open a renovated 35-room Interstate Inn, as well as another motel, with her siblings by the end of September. A third opening is planned for next year.

Lennox and her siblings are not alone: Motels are having a moment. Kimberly Walker, founder and creative director of Nomada Hotel Group, which owns three motels in California, says she sees a rise in what she calls “motel culture.” It includes people who are interested in owning and renovating motels, as well as travelers — especially young people — with an affinity for them.

In recent years, the humble roadside motel that an older generation might dismiss as outmoded at best has begun to appeal to a new group of younger fans, attracted to hit-the-road adventures. Instagram pages celebrating zany motel designs have hundreds of thousands of followers. The award-winning sitcom “Schitt’s Creek,” which takes place largely in a motel setting, has a cult following.

And streaming services, such as Max, have programs devoted to motel renovation. These programs became especially popular during the pandemic, when cooped-up viewers began dreaming of do-it-yourself projects.

The pandemic also changed how travelers viewed motels. A lot of homebound people craved a getaway after being shut up for so long, and motels, which afforded more privacy than many hotels, felt safer healthwise, Walker said. Outward-facing rooms meant guests didn’t have to walk through a crowded lobby or share an elevator to get to their cars. Many properties built more recently have private outdoor spaces.

When the Nomada Group purchased the Skyview in Los Alamos, for $1.9 million in 2016, it was so rundown and forbidding that locals likened it to the Bates Motel in the movie “Psycho.” But it had 360-degree views of the wine country and a quirky, bright yellow road sign right out of the Rat Pack days.

The company, which has outside investors, spent $3 million to overhaul the 33-room property. That included opening a restaurant, the Norman, where guests could dine on Bates burgers. It also included moving the parking lot and replacing it with a large communal space containing Adirondack chairs and a fire pit. The property has a rustic California feel, with a swimming pool surrounded by palm trees and spiky agave plants. Inside are a lot of midcentury modern-style features, like turquoise-blue bubble lamps and a hutch with a record player.

The Skyview was closed during the pandemic, but once California lifted its COVID-19 restrictions in June 2021, business was brisk, even on weekdays. A lot of the guests were working remotely and eager for a getaway, Walker said.

At Lennox’s Interstate Inn, one room has a water bed and a black velvet headboard. She also found a Magic Fingers bed, which vibrates when you put a quarter in the slot. Such beds were commonplace in motels in the 1960s and ’70s, but they had fallen out of favor by the ’80s.

Lennox said she hoped that when guests visited the Interstate Inn, they would say, “ ‘Oh, I love the mermaid drinking Champagne,’ or ‘I love the Sputnik wallpaper.’ ” She said that she wanted people to stay in a different room each time.

Touches like that can be a big hit in the Instagram age, said Lindsey Kurowski, the host of “Motel Rescue,” a television series about motel renovation on the Magnolia Network.

Many people, like Maggie Burke, who once avoided motels, have changed their minds. When Burke used to travel for work, she never considered staying in a motel. They had seedy associations of illicit assignations and hourly rates, she said.

“I would kind of look at the cars as I went zooming past, and think, ‘Oh, my God, who goes there?’ ” she said.

But last New Year’s Eve, her husband surprised her with a trip to the Alander, a newly restored roadside motel with its own restaurant in Ancram, New York.

Today, the couple are building a house in the area and regularly stay at the property. A hotel might offer more amenities, Burke said, but she has discovered she likes the quiet comfort and simplicity of a motel.

“You just come and go — you’re not disturbing anyone,” she said. “It’s become our new destination.”