Highway Haven Motel
Clean rooms, old-fashioned hospitality, and one cabin nobody forgets.
Welcome to Highway Haven
Highway Haven Motel is a fictional location in Tasha Zima’s interconnected Ashby Lake romance novels. This family-owned roadside motel sits just off the highway outside Ashby Lake, Ontario. Open since 1952, it offers travellers clean rooms, a convenient place to stop, and the kind of unhurried hospitality that has become increasingly difficult to find.
The low pastel buildings look like a postcard from another era. Aluminum chairs wait outside every door, hanging flower baskets do their determined best to brighten the walkways, and the neon Vacancy sign buzzes faithfully even in daylight.
At a Glance
Type: Family-owned roadside motel
Location: Off the highway outside Ashby Lake, Ontario
Established: 1952
Known For: Faded pastels, aluminum chairs, hanging flower baskets, and The Love Shack
Featured In: FWB: Friends with Baking
Family Owned Since 1952!
A Postcard from Another Era
Highway Haven has survived changing highways, changing cars, and several decades of travellers who promised they only needed a room for one night. The motel has been maintained with care, but nobody has tried to scrub away the parts that give it character.
The colours may be faded and the chairs may have outlived several design trends, but the rooms are welcoming, the grounds are looked after, and the flower baskets keep trying. It is not polished luxury. It is comfortable, cheerful, and entirely itself.
Inside the Motel Office
Inside the slightly tired motel office, an older clerk keeps watch behind the desk. Among the room keys hanging on the wall, The Love Shack is easy to identify: an old brass key attached to a large pink heart-shaped fob.
The Love Shack
Private, unforgettable, and extremely difficult to describe with a straight face.
Behind the main motel sits a freestanding white cabin with pink shutters, a porch swing, and a massive red heart painted over the door. Across it, bold glittery letters announce the cabin’s name to anyone who might somehow have missed the theme:
The Love Shack
Set apart from the other rooms, the cabin offers a little more privacy and considerably more commitment to its decorating choices. Subtle it is not. Memorable it absolutely is.