The Billy

Strategy

Davis is a tiny town with a huge draw. People come for the parks, the scenery, the trails, the water, the winter. The existing motel already had the location and the history. The opportunity was to expand capacity and update the experience without losing the straightforwardness that makes a good motel work.

The key move was to treat the space between the existing building and the new building as the main event. With two long bars, it would have been easy to end up with a leftover service yard. Instead, we designed that gap as a destination space: a multi-season outdoor room with places to sit, gather, warm up, cool down, and hang out before and after adventures.

Master Plan

The site plan is organized around three pieces: the existing motel, the new building, and the space between them. The new wing sits behind the original, keeping the property’s street presence intact while adding a second layer of experience once you arrive.

The Gulch is the connector. The outdoor space reflects the landscape nearby, a hollow between two peaks. The Gulch can be activated for each season and for different group sizes. It's a courtyard experience that will be core to the future of The Billy

Unit Design

The new building is designed like a motel should be: efficient, repeatable, easy to run, and still comfortable. Rooms are laid out to keep circulation clean and to make check-in, turnover, and maintenance straightforward.

Within that clear framework, we built in flexibility. There are small double rooms for quick stays, king rooms for couples, and larger suites when guests need more space. A portion of the layout is designed so rooms can connect. That helps families, friends traveling together, and groups that want to spread out without booking an entirely separate house.

Room mix matters here. Some guests arrive as couples for a weekend. Others come with friends, kids, bikes, dogs, and gear. The Billy’s new wing includes a range of room types, and the layout supports flexible booking. Rooms can be rented individually, paired, joined, or bought out all at once for larger events like weddings and retreats.

Interiors & Finishes

The interior palette is warm, graphic and a little funky. We leaned on the aesthetics of 70s chalets, creating a direction full of saturated colors, warm metals, and playful patterns.

We chose materials for the realities of a motel next to a state park: quick resets, wet boots, sandy shoes, bikes, skis, dogs, kids and gear.

Amenities & Guest Experience

The Billy is meant to work as a basecamp. You head out early. You come back muddy, tired, and happy. The property needs a place to rinse off, regroup, and hang out that isn’t just your room.

That’s what The Gulch does. It creates a shared experience without forcing social time. Guests can sit outside with a coffee, watch kids run around, meet friends for a drink, or warm up after a winter day. It’s also what makes the project work for buyouts. When a wedding or retreat takes the whole property, The Gulch becomes the shared “living room” of the site.