Roxanne Arsenault stretches out on the round, red velvet bed. "It's all about seduction," she says, eyeing the heart-shaped red whirlpool, ceiling mirror, chrome lights, fake fireplace and plastic plants.

But hers is a doomed love.

The 29-year-old artist, art history student, radio host, rapper and self-proclaimed champion of kitsch, booked the honeymoon suite for a long goodbye to the Motel Canada, a suburban Montreal landmark since 1960.

Roxane Arseneault, a grad student doing a thesis on kitsch Quebec culture, has started an online petition to save Motel Canada from demolition. One of the last themed motels in the Longueuil area, the Canada offered such rooms as the 'Lumberjack,' complete with log walls.

The 52-room motel checked out for good last Saturday after the last guests had departed.

The site has been sold and the new owner does not plan to operate the motel, a receptionist said. The owner declined to be interviewed.

Arsenault wants Longueuil, Que., on Montreal's south shore, to designate the motel a heritage site. The city has not received a request for permission to demolish the property, valued at $2.1 million, said communications director Francois Laramée.

Outside, the red neon sign glinted off the windows of the motel office, a Quebec-style farmhouse flanked by miniature fieldstone "maisons canadiennes." For $70, guests could indulge their fantasies in a lumberjack room with log walls and twig furniture, or an ersatz garage, complete with red convertible and sofa with armrests fashioned from the tail lights of a '59 Dodge. Suites were priced at $120 or more.

"It's one of the last theme motels in the Montreal area," said Arsenault, who is writing a master's thesis on kitsch commercial buildings.

Motels proliferated on U.S. highways after the Second World War as car travel became popular, said Andrew Wood, an associate professor of communications at San Jose State University and creator of the Motel Americana website.

The term -- a contraction of motor hotel -- was coined by Arthur Heinman, who built the Motel Inn of San Luis Obispo, California, in 1925. But chains and interstate highways have pretty much ended the golden age of quirky, independent motels with units shaped like teepees or Mexican adobes. Near the old Motel Canada, shopping centres and big box stores have replaced most of the old-style motels, says Raymond Boudreau, 65, owner of Motel Oscar, one of Quebec's first motels.

His father, Oscar, turned his hotel into a motor court in 1952 after a trip to Florida. Twenty-five movies, including Omerta and Horloge Biologique, have featured the motel's period decor as a backdrop.

Rooms rent for $65 a night, and guests stay for anywhere from half an hour to months at a time. "I have a bricklayer who's been here for two years," Boudreau says.

"Until 1961, it was three lanes here. Now, it's 10 lanes. I have 65,000 cars pass by my door every day."

Business is good, but it's hard to find chambermaids these days, Boudreau said. "A clean room is the basis of everything."

Originally published online here: http://www.canada.com/topics/travel/story.html?id=99a438f1-5da3-48c8-83b8-1462e963fe73&k=59155