ELDON, Mo.—During the 1960s and 70s, tiny Eldon, Mo. was known as “Gateway to the Lake of the Ozarks.” Old U.S. 54 curved through town like a rainbow. The Randles Court and Coffee Shop greeted tourists at the north end of a bend in the road. Clear sailing ahead, ten minutes to the lake.

Loyd A. Boots built what was originally called the Boots Cottage Court in the early 1930s in Eldon. He was from Bagnell, Mo. In 1931 the 2,500-foot long Bagnell Dam was constructed, which created the lake.  Boots had a foot up on tourism. There were no motels at the Lake of the Ozarks. (In 1939 his brother Arthur opened his Boots Motel on old Route 66 in Carthage, Mo. In mid-May that historic motor court was put up for sale because of the COVID-19 tourism drop.)

Mom & Pop businesses across America took a huge hit because of COVID-19. Bumps in the road are old hat to Jeremy and Jennifer Hart, the new owners of Historic Randles Court.

Theirs is a remarkable story of American dreams and perseverance.

The 15-room Boots Cottage Court became Randles Court in 1947. Loyd divorced his wife Helen Randles and she retained ownership. The motel stayed with her until the early 1970s when Chester and Donna Presta (Jeremy’s uncle and aunt) became owners. Jeremy used to goof around the motel as a kid.

Then…….

On Aug. 28, 2017, two days before the Harts were to close on the motel, a fire burned down the adjacent Philly Diner and caused considerable damage to their motel. The Harts rebuilt.

On May 22, 2019, a tornado straight-lined down U.S. 54 up through Jefferson City, knocking out the Randles Court original neon sign and taking off a backside portion of the motel’s roof. The Harts rebuilt.

In March 2020, the entire country shut down because of COVID-19. The Harts are rebuilding.

I wandered into Randles Court on May 15. I was in Eldon researching my next book. But I had to put that aside and listen to the Hart’s story. I could not believe their misfortune, but the real story was their fortitude. During an hour-long conversation in the motel lobby Jennifer laughed, smiled, and only teared up once. She is a bright light in these dark times. If you are anywhere within a day’s drive of Eldon you must make the effort to see her family’s immaculately restored motel.

I wondered aloud that if during the pandemic, she reflected that maybe the family should exit the motel business. Jennifer is 37 years old and Jeremy is 38. The Harts had taken three major hits in three years. The small office lobby is adorned with two framed color photographs; one of the fire damage and one of the tornado damage.

Jeremy & Jennifer, Valentine’s Day 2020 (Courtesy of Jennifer Hart)

“After the fire, the attitude was, ‘It’s still standing, we’re going to do this’, ”Jennifer said with a smile. “After the tornado, we slept for two hours, we got in here and were able to save all our Chenille quilts. That was important. And the building was still standing. So you keep going.

“This was supposed to be our project. This was supposed to be our baby. After the fire I felt like something had been taken from me.  There was insurance money. We were handed this money and able to start fresh. We worked our ass off for 18 months. I wanted to prove we could do this.”

Jeremy was born and raised in Eldon (pop. 4,600). Jennifer grew up in Tuscumbia (pop. 203), about 15 miles from Eldon. The Harts own and operate Mid Missouri Commercial Cleaning, a cleaning company in Eldon.

During my Friday afternoon visit Jeremy was at work while Jennifer was tending to the motel. She sat at her desk next to a black and white sign that read: “No matter how chaotic life is, wildflowers still bloom.”

“I fell in love with this place,” she said with a smile. “Mostly the architecture. When we came in it was a typical seedy roadside motel. It was weekly rentals from locals. During the summer we did have fishermen coming in for tournaments. But what I saw in it was the historic potential. It’s such a whirlwind to think about it. It was in such disrepair. I had been doing the bookwork so I knew what the finances were. It wasn’t profitable. Our cleaning business supported itself. It paid its bills.  Our cleaning business supports our family so we would not have to collect a paycheck–so that money could go back into the property. Our goal was to restore the rooms.”

Previous owners Chester and Donna Presta never had children. Chester passed away in the 1990s. “Jeremy’s Aunt Donna continued to run it and she passed away in 2011,” Jennifer said. “It kind of fell into Jeremy’s mom’s lap.” The motel had been in probate because no one left a will.

Randles Court, late 1940s early ’50s.

“One of his other aunts was doing the bookwork,” Jennifer explained. “She had to leave town for two months. I knew how to work QuickBooks because of our cleaning business.” Jennifer was recruited to help out with the bookkeeping for a couple of months. “So that two months turned into three years,” she said.

Besides the motel and the cleaning business, the Harts have three children between the ages of 10 and 14, Penny , a Chihuahua-Terrier mix,  and a black cat named Jasmine

Jasmine nestled on my right shoulder for a portion of our conversation.

I told Jennifer she might want to rethink that black cat.

She laughed and said Jasmine is in for the long haul.

Their goal is to draw on regional tourism. “We’re just ten minutes from Lake of the Ozarks,” she said. “The other seed that was planted that made us think this could be profitable was the Rock Island Trail is just a block away.” The proposed Rock Island corridor could become one of the world’s largest rail-trail loops. When complete, it will connect with the Katy Trail for a biking and hiking route stretching more than 450 miles across Missouri.

“The trail is up in the air, but it is moving forward,” Jennifer said. “We should be able to make a go of this. We had this five-year plan of renovating a couple of rooms at a time. They were charging  $42 a night when I started. And I got them to do $45.” Now rooms are $65 nightly at Randles Court. Jennifer plans to frame every room in a vintage theme. This summer she will be working on two fishermen themed rooms because of the proximity to Lake of the Ozarks. Jennifer is fishing for old pictures of people on the lake, vintage boats, and the Bagnell Dam.

“The fire didn’t affect the motel rooms,” Jennifer continued. “It was ruled undetermined, but we believe it was electrical.  Sandy, who managed the motel at the time, called us. I’ll never forget that phone call. She was, ‘Jennifer, I hate to tell you this, but the restaurant is on fire.’ We were coming in on business 54. We came to the truck stop about three miles out of town and a fire truck pulled out in front of us. It had its lights on. Jeremy stayed right behind the fire truck. We could see the smoke. I broke down.” Tears welled up in Jennifer’s eyes.

After the fire.

She composed herself and continued, “When we got here the smoke was down to Room 12, billowing out of the roof. The firefighters cut a couple of holes on the side of the roof and immediately it allowed the smoke to come out. Their actions saved the motel. The roofing system was all connected. We thought it was a miracle and there’s a reason the motel was saved.”

The Harts hired contractors to redo the electricity and reframe the front office which was next to the diner. The restaurant was a total loss. Only a vintage maroon and white tile floor remain. “We did a lot of the work to the rooms ourselves,” Jennifer said. “We painted. We laid some flooring. After the tornado hit, we gave it all to our contractor. We couldn’t do it again. I didn’t go into the rooms for four months after the tornado.

“I couldn’t do it emotionally.”

Robb Young is 2020 president of the Eldon Area Chamber of Commerce. Eldon is the kind of small-town where everyone knows each other inside and out. “Jennifer has a lot of tenacity and she always has a smile on her face,” Young said in a Tuesday phone interview. “After the tornado hit they had water damage and had to redo a lot of the rooms. She vowed to rebuild and how they were going to do it better. She has never had a negative attitude.

“She is a good person to have in the City of Eldon.”

Jennifer and Jeremy put sweat, tears, and money into their dream motel. And the more Jennifer researched the motel the more she felt connected with it its history. The Eldon Advertiser newspaper is just a block away so Jennifer would walk over to the office and peruse their files. She confirmed that Boots first built a service station on the property in 1931, the same year the Bagnell Dam was built. The cabins soon followed but she does not know when they were completed.

“We know it was in operation by 1934, based on the different documents we found,” she said. “I’ve found a lot. I found ads for the service station. We found out there was a bus stop here. I got several postcards out from eBay and there are stories of people who stopped here.”

Jennifer discovered this item in a 1934 Eldon Advertiser: “Loyd A. Boots had a vision he would build a tavern such as the visitor seldom sees. It would be attractive outside, immaculately clean inside and equipped with every modern convenience the tired muscles and bones of the weary traveler demands.” Loyd eventually opened his Boots Tavern on the property.

Jennifer and Jeremy on break time from restoring the office floor, May 2018 (Courtesy of Jennifer Hart).

In October 2017 the Harts stayed at the Boots Motel in Carthage on a research trip. Jennifer and Jeremy have had better luck in unlocking the history of their steadfast motel.

A month before they purchased the property they received a call from a gentleman in Poplar Bluff, Mo. Jennifer said,  “His wife’s grandfather had gutted a house and this fell out of the wall.” Jennifer got up to remove a cigar box from a safe underneath the office counter. The cigar box was filled with trinkets from the life of Helen Randles: a driver’s license, a Young Democratic Clubs of Missouri card and room receipts from 1941.

“We were cleaning out a storage area and found an envelope marked ‘history’ and it had even more things like war rations,” Jennifer said. “The things we found are unheard of. I fell in love with this building before we had any idea that we would have old blueprints to look at and old contracts to show us when things were done. This place can stand on its own as a masterpiece, but having the opportunity to find these things and research the newspapers, that’s the icing on the cake. We found boxes of original room keys and they’re tagged.” More than a dozen original room keys are now neatly displayed in a shadow box in the front office.

The Harts also found a letter from Missouri Neon in Springfield, Mo., which built the motel’s original neon sign in 1947. Missouri Neon is still in business and the Harts made the 90-minute drive to Springfield only to discover the firm had the original design sketches.

There’s even a story behind the companion 1947 red and green International truck that now sits under the Randles Court sign. The Harts wanted a parade and Christmas tree truck. Jeremy found the vehicle for sale in Hixton, Wi.  The Hart family took a road trip north to see the truck, which is all original.

“It was owned by a 93-year- old farmer who still worked his farm,” Jennifer said. “His son, nor Jeremy knew how to start the truck so this 93-year-old hopped in the truck and started it without a problem. The irony was that the farm and the truck had been hit by a tornado in 2001. The cracked passenger side window is evidence. All of their barns were destroyed, but the truck survived.”

1947 truck, 1947 sign (Photo by D. Hoekstra)

The May 2019 Eldon tornado forced the Harts to close the motel for repairs until October 2019 when they were able to open three rooms. They had planned a grand opening celebration for the Memorial Day weekend of May 24, 2019.

“The tornado hit two days before that,” Jennifer she said. The blue and white neon sign was shattered into many pieces. The Harts were able to recover about 40 pieces of the sign and it was reassembled and restored at Mid State Signs, outside of Eldon. The Harts paid around $76,000 to have the sign brought back to life. “We planned to have a sign lighting and open house for March 20 of this year,” she said. “And that week the whole pandemic took off and we postponed it. Hopefully in the next couple of years we can do an open house and show people what we’ve done.”

In the short term, the fire and the tornado actually helped the family weather the storm of the pandemic. Jennifer explained, “We’ve been setting money back because we haven’t been open. Our expenses are minimal right now. We had budgeted out so many months of the expenses we do have. If we hadn’t had done that, it would be really bad. But we’re getting toward the end of that budget. It’s nervewracking and scary.’

The weekend after I left, Jennifer and Jeremy finally had their sign lighting ceremony. Every room in their motel was full. The sun broke through the Ozark clouds.

Jennifer Hart; May 15, 2020 (D. Hoekstra photo)

“We’ve got to let people know we are here,” Jennifer said. “We have to get people who are in that niche market of historic adventures. We aren’t for everybody and we know that. We’re not a seedy motel anymore. We’re not going to do weekly rentals where people live here. We want to provide something people can’t experience everywhere else.”

So if you choose to experience how the world was in the humble land before all of this–pull into the Historic Randles Court and catch the forward spirit of Jennifer and Jeremy Hart. They’ve nurtured a bright neon sign you won’t soon forget.

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