North Wilkesboro Speedway, Defunct Pillar of NASCAR

What’s left of the North Wilkesboro Speedway is not hard to find; the dilapidated stands of this abandoned race track sit less than one hundred feet from the highway, just five miles east of town. The 5/8-mile track was built by moonshiners in 1946 and was a NASCAR original in 1949. It became a North Carolina legend after hosting nearly 100 races across a half-century of operation. Over time NASCAR crowds and TV contracts outgrew North Wilkesboro Speedway. As the sport got bigger and faster the track found itself ill-equipped to support the next generation of the sport. When the speedway’s founder died, so did its fortunes. The track’s final Cup race was in 1996, and aside from a brief revival in 2010, the track has been unused for 20 years.

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Azorean Palace in the Clouds

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Monte-Palace-Hotel-Sao-Miguel-Azores-palace-in-the-clouds

Atop a dormant volcano in the Azores, the remnants of the abandoned Monte Palace Hotel slowly disappear behind vegetation. In the late 1980s this hotel was the culmination of more than ten years of planning. It offered its guests top-shelf accommodations surrounded by million dollar views, but the business collapsed before its second operational birthday. Natives know why the hotel struggled: the location is too remote, weather too unpredictable, tourism campaign too ineffectual, and there’s nothing else to do up there. It was probably all of the above, plus a healthy serving of developers exhausting financing and succumbing to enormous debt. The hotel was designed to be purposefully unspectacular, its designers intending to blend the structure into the landscape while not detracting from the magnificent views offered by São Miguel’s Vista do Rei. Now it has been abandoned for years, and many feel the building detracts.

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Bugatti EB110: Rise & Fall of a Supercar

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Bugatti Automobili SpA abandoned factory

For the last twenty years this modern car factory in northern Italy has been abandoned, quietly fulfilling a lonely existence behind overgrowth in a gated compound. From 1991 until 1995 it was the most avant-garde factory in the world, home to Bugatti Automobili SpA and the place where 240 people built some of the world’s fastest cars. Bugatti Automobili was an Italian revival of the classic French nameplate, which for five years produced history’s forgotten supercar, the Bugatti EB110. When the company ran into financial problems in 1995, it filed for bankruptcy and was forced to abandon its state-of-the-art facilities. Almost miraculously, the complex has avoided redevelopment and serious vandalism for more than two decades. Today the unloved Bugatti EB110 and its abandoned factory are little more than footnotes in history, however the well-preserved buildings serve as a time capsule for the legacy of a dream and the forgotten triumph in engineering it produced.

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Adriatic Modernism: Grand Hotel of Lopud

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On the shores of small island just off the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, a (mostly) vacant modern hotel lives outs its days surrounded by the quiet anonymity provided by beautiful Lopud, Croatia. Buried in the Mediterranean garden of an island, the remains of this giant white concrete ship have peered from behind the island’s lush vegetative growth for the last eighty years. The ‘ship’ is the Grand Hotel, a modernist masterpiece designed by one of Yugoslavia’s greatest architects. It was built in the 1930s and kick-started the fishing island’s tourism industry. The Grand Hotel survived World War II and nationalization, but in the years since the Croatian War and re-privatization the hotel has failed to find its footing. After a 2001 bankruptcy it has passed through several companies’ hands, each trying to do what the one before could not. Today the Grand Hotel still appears as an unfinished remodel, but it has a new owner, a new hope, and a new set of residents.

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Begich Towers: An Alaskan Town in a Tower

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In the 1950s the United States government built a bunker of a residential skyscraper in the Alaskan wilderness. The purpose of the bomb-proof mid-century Hodge Building was to support a remote logistics station in Whittier, Alaska. It was part of a completely self-sufficient complex designed to allow its residents to stay indoors for months at a time during the harsh coastal Alaskan winters. The military eventually withdrew from Whittier before the Cold War facilities were fully utilized, leaving the mostly vacant buildings to the town. When the second largest earthquake in recorded history leveled much of southern Alaska in 1964, the 14-story Cold War relic was one of few structures to survive. Most in Whittier eventually found their way to the building, which was renamed Begich Towers (or BTI) after a missing Congressman. Today all but a handful of the town’s residents live inside.

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Inn of Insolvency: The Skinburness Hotel

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Welcome to northwestern England’s Skinburness Leisure Hotel, known for generations in Cumbria as a Skinburness landmark. During its 130 years of operation, the classic Victorian inn assembled an impressive track record of bankrupting its owners. Known as the Skinburness Marine Hotel when it opened in the 1880s, it enjoyed a brief, opulent period until its first owner went bankrupt after several years. The hotel changed hands and later spent nearly sixty years in government service as part of a liquor control program. Later it re-entered the private sector and proceeded to bankrupt its next two owners. For ten years it enjoyed a brief Renaissance under an experienced hand, but after it sold the hotel bankrupted its next owner. Since the Skinburness Hotel closed for good in 2006, two attempts to redevelop the property have failed. Now vacated for the last ten years, the old inn has deteriorated significantly. Today it remains for sale, awaiting an impending future of being demolished.

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Blue Ridge Blight on Afton Mountain

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Afton-Mountain-Skyline-Parkway-Motel-after-2004-fire-3-sm

In the 1950s and 60s the motor court rest stop at Rockfish Gap on Afton Mountain was a motoring mecca, offering Virginia motorists a scenic respite in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The first of this roadside collection of buildings was erected in 1948, and for more than twenty years Afton Mountain offered dining, gasoline, and lodging to weary travelers along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Business started to decline in the 1970s when Interstate 64 was constructed to the North, bypassing the small outcrop of buildings. For the next two decades the businesses were allowed to deteriorate before they started shutting down in the late 1990s. Less than a decade later, all but one business on Afton Mountain was closed. Some of the buildings have been set on fire and several have already been demolished, but all have been vandalized. The remaining dilapidated structures are unsafe with a combination of asbestos, broken windows, and collapsing roofs.

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Romanian Treasure: Cazinoul din Constanţa

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Founded in 600 BC, the city of Constanţa (historically known as “Tomis”) is the oldest continually inhabited city in Romania. Its port is the largest on the Black Sea and one of the most capacious in Europe. The city’s coastline is guarded by the empty Cazinoul din Constanţa, a rare and eye-catching example of Romanian Art Nouveau design. One hundred years ago this former casino was Romania’s most magnificent building, hosting world leaders and Europe’s elite. It survived two bombings during two world wars before gambling laws extirpated its profitability. The building was later forced into civic duty, which it served until it eventually closed in 1990. Attempts to renovate the waterfront site have been defeated by a financial crisis, delicate renovation constraints, gambling restrictions, and political indecision. Meanwhile, the estimate to repair the building grows. Will this Romanian treasure be saved before it succumbs to vandals and the elements?

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