The Super 8 Hotel in Platteville was built in 1988 and includes 46 rooms. The current owner, Ron Holl, has maintained the hotel and its legacy of having birds on the property. One of the hotels main attractions are the two mute swans, a male and a female, that live in the stream behind the Super 8. Platteville residents and those who stay at the hotel enjoy the beauty of these birds that live around the hotel year round.
Mute swans are not native to the United States or even North America. They were brought over from areas in Europe and Asia to decorate ponds and parks. Basic needs of the mute swan are open water and a source of food. Since they've been introduced, large populations of mute swans have settled in areas such as Chesapeake Bay which borders Maryland and Virginia, and in the Great Lakes.
The pair of swans that lived on the grounds of the Super 8 had been nicknamed "Naughty and Naughtier" by a couple residents in the community. Moria Holl, Ron Holl's wife, said that people from Platteville often stop by to look at the swans. She noted that one woman in particular often makes time to come every day to feed them. So when the female swan from the pair died this summer, people from the community were the first to ask where she went.
On November 17, the Holl's had another mute swan shipped in from New York to replace the female swan that had passed this summer. The new female swan is six months old and was brought in for companionship for the male swan that still resides at the Super 8.
Moria Holl said she wasn't sure if the pair liked each other just yet. When the Holl's first introduced the new swan into the environment with the older male swan, the female circled the male and flapped its wings at him. Patrons of the hotel hope the two will eventually settle in together.