Going out with a bang

The Dane County Sheriff’s Office Tactical Response Team and Madison Police conducted emergency training at the Karakahl Motor Hotel on Thursday of last week. First responders performed an array of drills, including using explosives to breach the hotel’s heavy metal doors (pictured above). The Tactical Response Team is an on-call tactical unit that consists of 23 deputies, detectives, and supervisors, in addition to six Tactical Medics. Tactical Response Team members train 16 hours a month. They also have a 40-hour block of training in the fall. Training during this time has been done at Fort McCoy, Volk Field, Milwaukee, and around Dane County. In addition to the monthly training, team members go to numerous seminars and training courses offered in Wisconsin and around the country.

Located at 101 Perimeter Road, the Karakahl Motor Hotel first opened its doors in 1964. Designed by architect John Steinmann, who also crafted the Wisconsin Pavilion for the New York World’s Fair, the building featured a dramatic, swooping saw-tooth roofline, a swanky restaurant that looked like it had popped out of a Raymond Chandler novel, a sunken rock garden, a large pool, and walls covered in audacious colors. It was designed “with the Norse culture of the community” in mind, according to an article in the Capital Times that said it would “aid [the] Mt. Horeb economy.” Behind the project was C.S. Gonstead, the famous chiropractor who worked out of the similarly Frank Lloyd-Wright-inspired clinic located just behind the inn. The newspaper in 1964 said it was the only motel in the area to offer dining accommodations.

Madison-based developer JT Klein Company Inc. plans to raze the building buildings and construct apartments there.