Ontario Airport Inn from “Poltergeist”

In “I must be living under a rock” news, I had no idea that a Poltergeist remake had debuted in 2015 – in 3D, no less!  Considering the so-called curse that plagued the OG trilogy, I’d have to think long and hard before signing up to be a part of any sort of reboot!  That cast and crew were seriously brave – yet it turns out the only thing plaguing the recent flick was bad reviews.  The rumored curse has never stopped me from stalking locales from the franchise, though, including the motel where the Freeling family stayed at the end of the 1982 original.  The location was actually a mystery for years, with several sources claiming that filming took place at Hotel Silver Lake in Westlake, and I am not entirely sure who finally pinpointed the correct spot.  Whoever did discover that the hotel utilized in the production was the Holiday Inn at 1801 East G Street in Ontario (now the Ontario Airport Inn), I thank you!  Since the lodging is situated right off the 10 Freeway between L.A. and Palm Springs, I figured it would be the perfect place for a pit stop on the way home from my last visit to the City of Angels, as wells as a perfect Haunted Hollywood posting.

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The property currently known as the Ontario Airport Inn was originally built as a Holiday Inn in the mid-1960s.

At the time, nothing was surrounding it but vacant land as you can see in the 1980 image from Historic Aerials below.

Aerial views look quite different today, though amazingly the hotel hasn’t changed a bit, structurally at least.

Per ads I came across on newspapers.com, by 1996 the lodging had become the Good Nite Inn which it remained through at least 2000.  Today, the Ontario Airport Inn, situated less than a mile from Ontario International Airport, boasts a huge pool, a courtyard with a BBQ, a laundry room, free coffee and fruit available 24 hours a day, a business center, park-and-fly services, rooms with Tempur-Pedic memory foam beds, and a complimentary continental breakfast and airport shuttle.  Not bad for rates that start at $69.95!

Before snapping any photographs, the Grim Cheaper and I popped into the lobby to ask permission from the powers that be.  A front desk clerk welcomed us and I explained that I was hoping to see the area of the hotel featured in Poltergeist.  She retreated to ask the manager if it was alright and when she returned she told me it was perfectly fine and then produced a map of the property, pointed to a building on the southern side and informed me that filming had taken place in front of Room 209.  Shocked that she knew the precise spot and figuring her awareness had to be due to the countless requests from stalkers like myself, I said, “Oh, do a lot of people come by asking to take photos because of Poltergeist?”, to which she deadpanned, “Nope, not really.”  And here I thought maybe I was in good company!  The GC and I could not stop laughing as we headed out the door toward Building 4, where we had been pointed (that’s it below).

Said to be “the Holiday Inn on I-74,” the weary Freelings venture to the hotel after leaving Midwestern suburbia, where their possessed home has just been sucked into a paranormal vortex, at the end of Poltergeist.  (That scene was achieved using a 6-foot by 4-foot model of the Simi Valley property that stood in for the family’s residence, the debris of which were, at least for a time, displayed in Steven Spielberg’s office.)

Room 209, where the Freelings check in, can be found on the second floor of Building 4.

I was shocked to discover upon walking up to the Freelings’ door that Ontario Airport Inn not only boasts the same coloring it did onscreen in 1982, with red doors and yellow walls, but that the number placards also remain entirely unchanged!

It is incredible that so little of the hotel has been altered since the filming, especially considering two changes in ownership and the passage of 37 years!  Aside from the addition of some hedges and the removal of the Holiday Inn signage, though, the place is frozen in time.

In an interesting twist, the locale is not included in the shooting schedule featured on Poltergeist: The Fan Site which covers all sixty days of principal photography, as well as one day of second-unit photography.  That coupled with the fact that Ontario is a somewhat out-of-the-way spot to film, especially considering the rest of the thriller was lensed in Simi Valley, Agoura Hills, Irvine, and Culver City, makes me wonder if the hotel segment was a re-shoot or perhaps a scene added after initial filming wrapped.

Figuring one of the Poltergeist DVD iterations had to feature a commentary of some sort which might provide clarity on the issue, I got to Googling and was shocked to discover via DVD Exotica that is not actually the case.  Amazingly, the only home release of the film with any sort of extras about the movie itself (and not paranormal activity in general)  is the 1982 LaserDisc which boasts a stills gallery, the original trailer, and a 7-minute making-of featurette (that you can watch here).  Sadly, none of the three provide any info on the hotel.  An Upland resident named Don J. did inform the Daily Bulletin in 2017 that producers landed on the locale thanks to its classic neon signage, which few Holiday Inns in the area still had at the time.  Whether that information is true or not is anybody’s guess.

The Ontario Airport Inn has another claim to fame!  The many musicians hired to perform at the California Jam music festival in 1974 were put up there and shuttled back and forth to the venue, the Ontario Motor Speedway, via helicopter.  During their stay, the motel’s marquee read “Welcome Western States Police Officers Assn.,” a rather humorous attempt to mislead any fans heading to the property hoping to catch glimpses of the various acts, which included such bands as Earth, Wind & Fire and the Eagles.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: Ontario Airport Inn, aka the Holiday Inn from Poltergeist, is located at 1801 East G Street in Ontario.  Filming took place in front of Room 209 on the second floor of Building 4.  Please keep in mind that the hotel is private property and you need permission to be on the premises.  You can visit the lodging’s official website here.