New owners take over Stockman’s Motel
By Larry Meyer
Argus Observer
Tuesday, February 17, 2009 10:57 AM PST
| |
| Lalit Bassi (left) and his sister, Garima Bassi, work in the Stockman's Store Monday. |
ONTARIO — Owning and operating motels around Central Oregon evolved into a full-time vocation for one family that traces its roots to India, and two members of the Bassi clan have touched down in Ontario.
Lalit Bassi, 18, is the spokesman for his family and a part owner in the family’s new enterprise — the Stockman’s Motel which is also a local landmark of sorts.
The little store adjacent to the motel is also now open, according to Lalit Bassi.
The rest of the family includes his father, Bimal Bassi, mother, Reeta Rani and sister, Garima Bassi.
A sister of his mother, Lalit Bassi said, came to the United States and worked at a motel at Madras — which she now owns — and invited the rest of her siblings and their families to Central Oregon. Four uncles and two aunts and their families now own and operate six motel properties in the Bend area.
Bassi and his family came from northern India, where his father’s family still runs a large store that sells building, plumbing and farm supplies.
“We were working for the family in Bend for seven years,” Bassi said.
Last year they began looking for their own business. Bassi took it upon himself to search the Internet for motel properties, checking out places all over Oregon and adjoining states. Some were too expensive, and other didn’t look great. Some motels were posted on the Web one day and gone the next, Bassi said.
“I looked for this business seven or eight months,” he said. “I did it by myself. The Stockman’s has a high reputation. I liked the town and my parents did too.”
One of the reasons the family chose the Stockman’s Motel was the adjoining building on the property offered the opportunity of a second business, the newly reopened convenience store.
Besides boasting a good structure, Bassi said the Stockman’s is in a good location. It draws a lot of business customers, as well as regulars and tourists going through town. “They know where we are,” he said.
Bassi is a senior at Ontario High School, while his sister, Garima Bassi, is a freshman. He could have already graduated except he had make up some credits, he said.
While he attends school for a regular day, most of his time is spent helping teachers or working with other students as a tutor. He and his sister work the store when they are not in school.
“It’s OK. It’s easier than India,” Bassi said about U.S. schools. “It’s totally different.”
One difference is in India students do not move around between classes like they do in U.S. middle and high schools. Bassi said he had to take one year over again in the U.S.
It had to be a place that his parents liked when choosing a motel, Bassi said.
After high school, he plans to major in computer engineering at the Oregon Institute of Technology, Portland campus.
During the process of buying the motel, Bassi, his father and sister became U.S. citizens.
They were sworn in last September in Portland. It cost $2,000 for his sister to take on the family last name, which she did not have before, Bassi said.
His mother will take on the Bassi name when she applies for citizenship.
Decided wrote on Mar 3, 2009 7:21 AM: