Overnight in another era

WILDWOOD - They laughed in 2001 when Jack Morey (he of amusement-pier fame) parked two vintage Airstream trailers outside his Starlux Hotel, offering them for rent as hotel rooms.

But iconically American aluminum traveling tubes like these, which were first manufactured in the 1930s and have never lost their niche appeal, are now riding a new wave of popularity with hotels and campgrounds worldwide.

Earlier this year, the camping giant KOA put 25 Flying Cloud Airstream models at its campgrounds in Las Vegas; Bar Harbor, Maine; and Key West, Fla. The arrangement with KOA marks the first time that curious tourists and would-be buyers can stay overnight in a new Airstream.

Vintage models like those at the Starlux are popular staples at Kate's Lazy Meadow Hotel in the Adirondack Mountains (lazymeadow.com) and at Ten Thousand Waves, a Japanese-themed spa in Sante Fe, N.M. (tenthousandwaves.com).

American Retro Caravans in Somerset, England, rents Airstreams for camping tourists. And the four-story Grand Daddy Hotel in Cape Town, South Africa, has seven Airstream/hotel rooms bolted to its roof.

Karen Bence manages Jersey Shore Airstream Haven in Seaville, an owners-only park that does no rentals.

"A younger group is getting into Airstreams," says Bence. "They're buying used models from older people."

Nearly everybody loves Airstreams, says Lauren Botticelli, who, with her husband, Patrick, works at the number-one Airstream sales dealership in the nation, Colonial Airstream in Lakewood, N.J.

The sleek silver styling made them unique, and the manufacturer makes as few as 700 in some years, Botticelli said, so the resale value is much greater than for other travel trailers.

Airstreams are in the Smithsonian Institution and the Henry Ford Museum. They've been featured in films, photographed by professionals, and sought after by celebrities (actor Matthew McConaughey owns three).

The Starlux's renovated 1957 and 1971 models rent nightly for about the same price as nearby hotel rooms ($77 and up). The trailer patrons use the hotel's pool and other amenities. But Airstreams are not for everybody, says Gordon Clark, the hotel's general manager.

Though equipped with kitchenettes and bathrooms, the trailers are small because they were designed for cross-country travelers. For some larger folks, that's not a good fit.

Still, Clark says, the trailers are especially popular with older couples who remember traveling in Airstreams as youngsters.

For Morey, who bought a shuttered hotel with partners in mid-2000 and turned it into the doo-wop style Starlux, these two Airstreams "are the cherry on the top."

His idea faced initial opposition.

"These things look like something you'd put astronauts in in the 1960s" was what one opponent said, Morey recalls.

But that's just the point, Morey says.

Given the futuristic form of the Airstream, with its aerodynamic profile and gleaming-aluminum sheathing, it was an aesthetic natural for NASA. The space administration bought several silver Airstreams as mobile isolation units for astronauts after splashdown. The one that housed the three-man crew of Apollo 11 after its 1969 moon landing is pretty priceless - it's at the Smithsonian.