MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > The History of the Motel and the House

The History of the Motel and the House

posted 6 years ago by ecarle (14979)
5 replies | jump to latest

The Psycho house is pretty clearly the most famous house in movie history, and created -- as first out of the mind of novelist Robert Bloch -- to be shown to us in tandem with a more modern motel "just down the hill." The greatest combination of architectural iconography in movie history as well, you ask me. There is such a brilliant atmospheric power in how the house looms over the motel that I feel at least part of Psycho's power lies in that setting(that really, really scary things HAPPEN in that setting was further evidence of Hitchcock's ability to really, really deliver, here.)

But sometimes, its worth contemplating the history of that fictional house and motel. I know I have....and I can't say that I have all the answers. A writer on film named David Thomson has written on the history of the house, and offered SOME possible answers.

Back up in time from 1960, the year the film came out, and pretty much the year the story is set(well, the film is set in December 1959, no?)

The motel is existing in 1959. Mother has been dead ten years, and the motel was built before her death -- her boyfriend convinced her to build the motel "he could convince her of anything."

Key plot point, yes? If the motel did NOT exist when Mother first meet the boyfriend, he must have been around a LONG time before Norman killed him and Mother. Long enough to meet the mother and convince her to build the motel.

Its possible, come to think of it, that mother and the boyfriend were dead before the motel opened, yes? Perhaps Norman has been running it all along, solo.

Mother died in 1949. The motel is thus likely a 1940's model(I'll bet Hitchcock had that researched.) I'll peg it as a post-war motel, a 1945 or later motel.

But what of the house?

Well, another clue: Norman says his father died "when I was five." I believe that Tony Perkins was 28 when he made Psycho. 28 minus five is 23 . 23 years before 1959 was...1936. So PAPA Bates died in 1936. (BTW, 28-year old Anthony Perkins' REAL father, Osgood Perkins, died when Perkins was five, too.)

And that was Papa Bates' house.

Writer David Thomson wrote a "backstory" for Norman Bates(and about 30 other movie characters, from Judy Barton to JJ Gittes) in a book called "Suspects." Thomson posited Papa Bates as a man called Henry Bates, a home builder by trade who elected to build the best house he could build as HIS house, and who planted it on a hill "to watch out over the land for coming intruders." Thomson contended that Henry Bates was pretty old (50s) when he married the much younger Norma(20s), thus allowing his son Norman to have a mother far closer in age to Norman than his father -- and allowing Henry to die off early and to leave Norman and Norma "all alone rattling around in that big house."

We can assume that Henry Bates was from an old-line family, perhaps from California, but perhaps transplanted from the East. There is a suggestion of San Francisco sophistication to that old house(Hitchcock himself said the Hotel McKittrick in Vertigo influenced the Psycho house design), or perhaps New York. I'm liking San Francisco, I'm liking the Bateses as California natives. In any event, Henry Bates(or his family) owned land near Fairvale and Henry put the house there.

(The fictional Fairvale is near the real city of Redding in Shasta County, California. I've done some research. Redding was settled as 49er Gold Country til the gold ran out, and then became more of a prosperous river town, with farming all around it. Perhaps the Bates property -- aside from the hill -- was built for farming, but frankly, the terrain looks too hilly.)

Perhaps Henry Bates wasn't a farmer, but rather(as David Thomson surmised) built homes as nearby as Redding(or the smaller town of Fairvale) and as far away as San Francisco or Sacramento. That would make Bates well off(hence Mother able to live as a widow without working, per Norman) and sophisticated(hence Norman's own erudite way with words.)

Still, there is an issue that clashes with the Thomson version, I think: that house looks too OLD to have been built by Norman's father. It looks like a house from the very late 1800's, or perhaps the very early 1900's. Norman's father would have been pretty young. Perhaps HIS father(Norman's grandfather) was a home builder, too.

Hitchcock noted to Truffaut that houses like the Bates House are "all over the place in Northern California" and were not that weird. They were called "California Gothic" or "Gingerbread Gothic" (thus again suggesting California and not East Coast roots for the Bates family.)

Honestly, even given the changes made to the house(it was "cannibalized" from existing structures on the Universal backlot with some additions) is not the Gothic design of the Bates house readily "made" for age by a house expert?

But WHEN?

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

BECAUSE: Let's say the Bates house was built by the GRANDFATHER of Norman Bates, and built in, say, 1889, and then "given" (in the early 19th century) to Henry Bates(Norman's father) who eventually met Norma(say in 1930), and who moved Norma in with him as his wife.

That timeline would "fit," I think and it would make the point that the famous Psycho house we see in the 1960 movie is meant to be....71 years old! (1960 minus 1889).

Or maybe I'm all wrong.

Still, its worth pondering.

Pondering how, around the turn of the 19th Century into the 20th Century, the original Bates family had had built a handsome mansion...in the middle of rural backcountry nowhere, on an ominous hill...which led to a marriage(Henry and Norma), a birth(Norman), a father's death(Henry's), a long life "with no one else in the world"(Norma and Norman's), a boyfriend (Norma's), the building of a motel(the Bates), two murders(Norma's and the boyfriends), two more murders("young girls" who happened to stop at the Bates motel, likely in the mid- to late fifties) and two more murders(in December of 1959, another young woman and a tough private eye.)

That's a lot of history to the Bates house and motel. Over 71 years.

And I wonder when the old highway was built? Likely ahead of the motel, probably in the 30s -- that's why a motel could be built ("Motel" kinda sorta meant "motor hotel" -- for cars to pull into on the highway.)

And I wonder when the NEW highway was built? (the fifties, likely, that's when President Ike sought the building of the interstates.)

But perhaps the most interesting thought to consider here -- the vision to keep -- is: all those years that there was ONLY that house there, no motel (1889 to 1946, maybe?), looking out over acreage not being used for much of anything as a wealthy old homebuilder made a small family, died...and left mother and son to dark fates.

Just musing around here....

[–] Otter (24464) 6 years ago

The house does look much older than the motel, late 19th or early 20th century, so I don't buy that Norman's father built it unless he was well on in years when he married. I live near that region, and I have to say that sort of design isn't unusual in wooden country houses, there are a couple of old farmhouses outside my town that look similar. The Bates house is larger than many and set imposingly on a hill, which implies that whoever built it was better off than their neighbors. But not tremendously so, the house isn't huge and it isn't covered in the kind of fancy gingerbread one can still see on the "painted ladies" of San Francisco (and which aren't limited to SF, there are some scattered around the northern central valley). Whoever built the house wasn't wealthy, not really, they may have been the best off family in Fairvale (for what that would be worth), but probably not.

So when I look at the house, knowing the area, I see a house that was once meant to signal prosperity and being better than the neighbors, but which is now ramshackle. It implies a family that was once isolated out of snobbery (snobbery without wealth), but which is now isolated out of a family pride that continued long after the money was gone... decay, old age, and insanity. And that's undoubtedly what the production design people wanted to imply.

And BTW, there's no making assumptions about generations past based on the house. For all we know Norman's parents could have bought it from the people who built it, or maybe Norman's mother bought it after her husband died.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The house does look much older than the motel, late 19th or early 20th century, so I don't buy that Norman's father built it unless he was well on in years when he married.

---

Well, in making my musings, I had only David Thomson's own musings in his book "Suspect"(recommended, its from 1985 I think) to work from . He postulated an old man named Henry Bates building the house "to advertise his trade," and marrying a much younger woman(Norma.)

----

I live near that region,

---

I have visited that region, and I did give thought to Hitchcock telling Truffaut that these types of houses are pretty common to Northern California,

--

and I have to say that sort of design isn't unusual in wooden country houses, there are a couple of old farmhouses outside my town that look similar.

---

Yes, I've seen a few like that, too.

---

The Bates house is larger than many and set imposingly on a hill,

---

"Imposingly on a hill" is key to a lot of its impact, particularly in any scenes where the motel(or a portion thereof) shares the frame. And for 90% of the movie, we only see the house from ONE angle -- up to our left. (Finally when Lila approaches do we see it "head on." The right side of the house wasn't even built.)

----

---

which implies that whoever built it was better off than their neighbors. But not tremendously so, the house isn't huge

---

Indeed, not tremendously so. From what we seen of the inside, it isn't really a mansion. Famously, Hitchcock never shows us what a visitor would see to his/her LEFT upon entering. Upstairs? One big room for MOther and one little cramped room for Norman, and a bathroom(up at the top of the stairs, straight ahead) that Hitchcock only shows us in the trailer(well, he opens the door and looks in. We see nothing -- because nothing was built.)

The Psycho house is formidable from the outside(particulary the first time it is seen in a driving rainstorm, its side gleaming like reptilian skin), but not so much inside

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

nd it isn't covered in the kind of fancy gingerbread one can still see on the "painted ladies" of San Francisco (and which aren't limited to SF, there are some scattered around the northern central valley).

---

I suppose of some "intrigue" is that houses of this sort were likely all over America in the late 18th Century and early 199th century -- "Meet Me In St. Louis" showed us a block full of them.

But Psycho is set in California and comes equipped with a feeling of "the old invading the young." The young STATE(California.)

---

Whoever built the house wasn't wealthy, not really, they may have been the best off family in Fairvale (for what that would be worth), but probably not.

---

Hmmm...I know of wealthy farm families who live in modest houses on hundreds of acres of farmland. Perhaps this was the Batese's lifestyle.

---

So when I look at the house, knowing the area, I see a house that was once meant to signal prosperity and being better than the neighbors, but which is now ramshackle. It implies a family that was once isolated out of snobbery (snobbery without wealth), but which is now isolated out of a family pride that continued long after the money was gone... decay, old age, and insanity.

---

Cool analysis.

---

And that's undoubtedly what the production design people wanted to imply.

---

Undoubtedly? Good level of confidence. I can certainly see Hitchcock instructing his art directors in very precise ways about what the house was supposed to look like -- how much size, how much wealth implied, etc. I expect he was given paintings and photographs of REAL such houses -- and production drawings of a prototype from which the final house was constructed.

---

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And BTW, there's no making assumptions about generations past based on the house.

---

None whatsoever. Hell, all I did was to crib DAVID THOMSON'S imagingings of Henry Bates. Thomson also guessed that Norman ACCIDENTALLY poisoned Mother when she drank wine intended only for the boyfriend. Thomson imagined a LOT of things.

---

For all we know Norman's parents could have bought it from the people who built it, or maybe Norman's mother bought it after her husband died.

---

All possible. Part of what this exercise tells me is that there isn't really much percentage in imaging how the Bates House and the Bates Motel came to be. Their dark , macabre power is in what they are TODAY(when the movie first played): a rather shabby but modern motel down the hill from a Gothic mini-mansion in which Mother's room is as if the past were mustily preserved.

Backstory doesn't much help change the spooky reality of the house and motel, circa 1960.

PS. The Psycho House and Motel TOGETHER are the greatest setting for a horror movie ever imagined. Second place: the Overlook Hotel in The Shining, so gigantic, so many hundreds of rooms. And we are told way in advance that Jack Nicholson, his wife, and child will be the ONLY ones in that gigantic house, hundreds of miles from civilization. Every room a mystery, every room a potential deathtrap.

One is scared just at the thought of it BEFORE the staff leaves Jack and Family alone there.