Torrence recognized that innovation served as a key to bringing in new customers and sought out ways to cut costs without skimping on amenities. By hiring his brother-in-law W. N. McGrady to oversee construction, Torrence was able to open the motel with rates as low as one dollar per single and two dollars per double room. In the years following, advertisements often touted the tourist apartments’ comfortable mattresses and high quality furniture. By the 1940s, ads proclaimed that each room had a not only a Beautyrest mattress, but also its own telephone.