The Star-Studded Legacy of a Vancouver Motel

Few Vancouver locations have as rich an onscreen history as the 2400 Motel, better known among locals as ‘the 2400.’ Built in 1946 in Vancouver’s Renfrew-Collingwood neighbourhood, the motel’s bungalow layout and iconic neon sign will be familiar to viewers of hit TV series including The X-Files, Supernatural, Yellowjackets and numerous feature films. What makes this 80-year-old motel such a favourite of location scouts and filmmakers?

The motor court was a familiar site in postwar North America. Cheap and conveniently located close to highways and main roads, they appealed to vacationers, business travellers and fixed-income families alike. The 2400 wasn’t the only motor court built along Kingsway; for a time the thoroughfare was dotted with similar motels, including the London Guard, the Chateau Motel, Bookie’s Bungalows, and the Caravan Motor Hotel in Burnaby.

Vancouver faced a housing crisis in the 1940s not unlike ours today, and many returning veterans and their families lived in motor courts until longer-term housing caught up with demand.

Kristian Miller was hired as the 2400’s general manager in 2022, following the shutdowns and social distancing measures of the COVID-19 pandemic, both to run the motel and “renovate and reconnect the property with the community’s hearts and minds.”

Miller credits the 2400’s unique layout for its appeal to film location scouts. The motor court’s 65 rooms across 18 buildings and 3.5 acres of land, he said, “enables so much more creative freedom.” The timeless look of the motel works for films set in the past or present, America or Canada, small towns or the outskirts of cities.

A hotspot for ‘Hollywood North’

While it’s difficult to pin down the 2400’s first onscreen appearance, the motel became a regular filming location after the opening of Lionsgate Studios, now called North Shore Studios, in 1989.

Location scouts began familiarizing themselves with places in the Lower Mainland which could double for small-town America. The Commish, a 1990s television series starring Michael Chiklis as the police commissioner of a small city in New York State, featured the 2400 in two second-season episodes, and again in Season 4.

But it was the phenomenal popularity of the American science-fiction TV series The X-Files, which featured the 2400 in the Season 3 episode “Wetwired,” which put the motel on the cinematic map.

“It took the better part of three seasons to get to our favourite motel in the entire Lower Mainland,” location scouts Louisa Gradnitzer and Todd Pittson write in X Marks the Spot: On Location with The X-Files. While in the episode it’s called the Mirador Motel, the 2400’s neon sign is shown twice, and the logo appears on a book of matches.

The crew also stayed at the motel; according to Gradnitzer and Pittson, “several crew members took advantage of our room reservations to host a private party” after filming ended. The 2400 also appeared in The X-Files’ Season 5 episode “The Pine Bluff Variant.”

“Watching guests comb through footage to find exactly what room to request to stay where X-Files episodes featured is always uplifting,” the 2400’s manager Miller says — and for the record, Scully’s room was 274, while Mulder’s was 127.

Wide-ranging American television series such as Smallville, Psych, Bates Motel and Stargate SG-1 all filmed at the 2400, but few places returned there as often as Supernatural, the popular horror-fantasy series that aired for 15 seasons from 2005 to 2020. Sam and Dean Winchester visit the motel in the Season 1 episode “Something Wicked,” in which the neon sign appears; in Season 11 it shows up as the “Too Tired Motel.” All told the 2400 made six appearances on Supernatural.

On film, the 2400 shows up in 3000 Miles to Graceland, a 2001 action-thriller starring Kurt Russell and Kevin Costner as crooks who rob a Las Vegas casino while dressed as Elvis impersonators. Russell and Courtney Cox hole up at the 2400 en route to Seattle. The motel also shows up in the schlocky horror movie Halloween: Resurrection, starring Tyra Banks as an evil reality show producer and local stuntman Brad Loree as Michael Myers, as well as Code Name: The Cleaner, a comedy starring Cedric the Entertainer and Lucy Liu.

In 1999, the motel found itself the centre of a plot more farfetched and villainous than any movie or series filmed here. Would-be LAX bomber Ahmed Ressam and his co-conspirators holed up in the 2400, brewing a plastic explosive in a bungalow near the rear of the motel grounds. After travelling from Victoria to Port Angeles by ferry, Ressam was apprehended by border officials.

A motel where Vancouver played itself

When it comes to films and shows actually set in Vancouver, the 2400 has an equally impressive resume. It shows up in The Romeo Section, the Chris Haddock-created show about a University of British Columbia professor (Andrew Airlie) running a ring of sex spies. It also appears in an episode of the police procedural Motive, starring Kristin Lehman and Louis Ferreira as homicide detectives.

Canadian film director Bruce Sweeney’s 2018 independent feature Kingsway makes the 2400 a part of the story. Depressed husband Matt Horvath (Jeff Gladstone) suspects his wife is having an affair in one of the bungalows — “Those cute little cabins?” Matt’s sister Jessica (Camille Sullivan) asks — and stakes out the 2400 to catch her.

“The motel is like a chameleon, and movie magic helps, but we do indeed play ourselves the best,” says Miller, the 2400’s manager.

“The American productions feel like they operate a little quicker, because usually when they are up here they are juggling so many actors, director, sets and crew that they have a certain schedule and really can’t veer from it,” he continued. He noted that local production crews usually have more flexibility with their schedules, which allows them to delay filming for better weather or extend their stay if they need to.

In recent years, the motor court’s most well-known appearance has been on the thriller Yellowjackets, a television series that premiered in the early 2020s and follows the grown-up survivors of a high school soccer team stranded in the wilderness after a plane crash. The 2400 serves as a temporary residence for soccer player Natalie (Juliette Lewis).

The 2400 has a storied cinematic history that has included Hollywood stars, local auteurs and many of the best-known TV shows filmed in the Lower Mainland. And last August, the City of Vancouver received a proposal to redevelop the 2400 site as a mixed-use development with four residential towers. The proposal includes 863 units of rental housing, a 37-space child-care facility, 15,000 square feet of indoor community gathering space and ground-floor space for commercial use.

For now, the 2400 Motel is still open for business, 80 years after it first began welcoming guests.

“Every time I’m out in the community, someone shares a memory tied to the motel, and it’s incredible to hear how deeply it resonates,” Miller says.