At America's vintage motels, it's 1950 all over again - every single night.
Something about the swath of carpet grass in front of a motel makes you feel like a kid again. Look at that grass, and you think of sleeping in the backseat of the car, wheels eating up the road below, your little brother jostling for more space. You think of the rocket­-shaped cookie jar where Dad threw his loose change. He and Mom would empty the jar right before vacation, roll the coins, and exchange them at the bank for traveler's checks.

The motel arose because of America's love affair with the automobile. The motels blazed roadsides with neon, turned to tiki when soldiers returned from the South Pacific and to space-age design when we traveled to the moon. Now its appeal is as much about retro chic as it is about the swimming pool, TV, and air-conditioning. Some motels are registered as historic places. Others, endangered by development, have devotees of mid-century modern design lobbying for their protection.

Around the United States are motels where you can step across the threshold - or stare at the lawn - and enter the past. These are 15 of our favorites.

1. Starlux, Wildwood, New Jersey The Starlux is just one gem in the Wildwoods resort area, known as the center of doo-wop architecture. You know doo-wop: buildings meant to look as if they were transplanted, intact, from Tiki Island or Mars or Candyland (for more, see www.doowopusa.org). This stretch of the Jersey shore is chock-full of 1950s and '60s motels, not to mention chrome-plated diners and elaborate neon signs. Even contemporary businesses are getting in on the act: Subway has a doo-wop sign, and the Harley-Davidson dealership is tricked out like a '50s movie theater.