Wittrup Motel - Denmark’s Oldest Motel, With a Drive-In Reception and a 1950s Time Capsule Inside

When Sallie Zimmerhackel asked a Danish tourism office in the 1950s for a room with a bath and space for her car, she was told that such a place did not exist in Denmark. She owned one. Today Wittrup Motel in Albertslund is the oldest surviving motel in Denmark, and you still enter through a drive-in reception before parking directly in front of your room.

It is also where, according to the motel, Denmark’s first cheeseburger was served. After decades of modernization, the owners have returned the restaurant and a growing number of rooms to the way they looked in the mid-1950s.

Between Copenhagen and Roskilde

Wittrup Motel is in Albertslund, 20 km (12.4 mi) west of Copenhagen City Hall, which is about a 25-minute drive. Roskilde is 17 km (10.6 mi) away and Køge Bugt Strand is 8 km (5 mi) away. Copenhagen Airport is about 26 km (16.2 mi) from the motel.

The motel sits on Roskildevej, the main road between Copenhagen and Roskilde, just off the motorway. If you travel without a car, Albertslund Station has S-train departures every 10 minutes during the day.

From a Bare Field to Denmark’s First Motel Burger

Sallie Zimmerhackel, an American, came to Denmark to teach at the American Embassy school in Copenhagen. There she met Oscar Wittrup, a Dane who had admired the motels he saw in the United States, and in 1955 they built one on a bare field in Albertslund, far from the city. Only the BP Motel in Roskilde, which no longer exists, came earlier.

Danish banks turned Sallie down, so she wrote to her old bank in Colorado and raised the first 10,000 dollars there. The permits were another battle. “We had to have permits by the ton. Permit to exist, permit to build, permit to get a permit... gee,” she told the newspaper Politiken in September 1955. The journalist, Lise Nørgaard, described her as “an atomic bomb in the guise of a woman.”

Then almost no one came. When Sallie called a local tourism office and asked for a room with a bath and space for her car, the woman who answered said such a place did not exist in Denmark. Sallie had already told the office about her motel. Its head suggested she show his staff what a motel was, so she invited them over. The next night, the motel was full.

Sallie ran it for about 15 years, until the end of the 1960s. How her life ended is not known: one story says she died on a trip to Germany, another that she died of an illness at a hotel in France. The motel passed through several owners, and over the decades, modernizations erased much of its original look.

In 2013, brothers Claus and Henrik Hansen, the third generation of the family running it, decided to take the place back to 1955.

Sallie's Restaurant & Snack Bar - Denmark’s First Cheeseburger

The restaurant renovation ran up to the 60th anniversary in 2015. The building was emptied until only the walls remained, and extra windows were added to let in light, which softens the dim wall colors typical of the 1950s.

Torben Nielsen, a film stage manager, architect and 1950s enthusiast, designed the décor and the furniture that could not be found as originals. Decisions covered wall colors, floor materials, ceiling lamps, the chrome edging on the laminate tables and the handles on the toilet doors.

The old menus were studied and the recipes reworked. You can order Sallie’s Original Cheeseburger, which the motel says was the first cheeseburger served in Denmark. Milkshakes come in tall glasses, and the Original Coffee Shake is the one Lise Nørgaard was served in 1955 when she wrote her Politiken article.

The menu also includes steaks, barbecue ribs, fish ‘n chips, a vegetarian burger, a Caesar salad, tomato soup and chicken. Everything is homemade. The restaurant is often fully booked in the evenings, so reserve a table in advance.

The Original 50s Rooms

The Original 50s Rooms are modeled on how the rooms looked when Sallie and Oscar built the motel. The renovation began in 2013 as an experiment with 12 rooms, which received new colors, wallpaper and black-and-white photographs on the walls.

It has since continued across the motel’s rooms. The furniture is light and airy and was designed and produced specifically for Wittrup.

The wallpaper and carpets are as close to the originals as possible, and the room has an American diner-style table and chairs, an open wardrobe with a luggage bench and American standard pillows. Beds measure 210 cm (83 in), longer than standard.

Each room measures approximately 14 sq m (151 sq ft), plus a 3 sq m (32 sq ft) bathroom with a shower. Rooms are available with two single beds, one double bed, or a double and a single bed for three people.

As at any motel, the rooms are on one level, you park directly in front of your door, and a large canopy gives you somewhere to sit on a rainy day. In summer, garden chairs are placed outside the rooms.

The motel’s 67 rooms are in four categories. Besides the Original 50s Rooms, there are Superior rooms built in the year 2000, Standard rooms in the original 1950s buildings, and seven Economy rooms in a separate building near a small thatched-roof village, with bathrooms in the corridor.

Classic Cars, 1950s Concerts and American Holidays

The motel’s 1950s identity drives its event calendar throughout the year. Youngtimer car shows and Start and End of Summer Cruises for classic American cars draw car enthusiasts. A 1950s day brings live music, dancing, car shows, and shops selling 1950s hair products and clothing.

At the restaurant’s concerts, musicians and audience members often dress in 1950s clothes. American holidays are celebrated, including Valentine’s Day and Halloween. The motel also operates a mobile food truck, a 1957 US Airstream, which serves specialties from Sallie’s Restaurant & Snack Bar.