TIPTON-As night darkened the roadside haven on Highway 99, Phil Mullins of Modesto practically scurried from his car toward a restroom.

About the best thing he can say about the rest stop near Tipton is that it's convenient.

"The bad thing is it's poorly lit," said Mullins, who was on his way back recently from a business trip in Las Vegas.

California's 87 rest stops, or "safety roadside rest areas," were mostly built during the highway heydays of the 1960s and are not exactly aging gracefully.

"We could offer more to the people of California than we do now," said Suzy Namba, a landscape architect with the state Department of Transportation.

California's rest stop of the future will offer motorists like Mullins more than a pit stop -- inviting vistas to stroll through, displays showcasing the local region and maybe even a Starbucks latte.

Visitors could get vital travel information through electronic displays or wireless Internet connections.

"That would certainly make it more convenient," said Mullins, 47, who travels Highway 99 several times a week for work.

"I think late at night it can get questionable here," he said, of the drably lit collection of buildings and vending machines.

The Great Valley Center, a private, nonprofit organization in Modesto that promotes the Central Valley, invited designers to give the Tipton rest stop an extreme makeover. The winning designs would become a template of sorts for new or remodeled rest stops around the state, said Carol Whiteside, president of Great Valley.

"We wanted them to become a gateway to tourist attractions or other local opportunities," she said.

In the long term, the vision could include commercial activities like farmers markets and companion businesses like a restaurant.

The winning design had to incorporate enviromental aspects: It had to operate on solar energy, and waste water had to be recycled. The rubble from the old rest stop also had to be somehow incorporated into the design.

Earlier this year, a winning design from a Charlottesville, Va., architect was chosen.

"I can't remember a memorable stop at one ever," said Michael Wenrich, the winning architect. "I got excited about the potential of what is usually a neglected, unwelcoming place to be."

His design features four courtyards that house all the typical functions and picnic tables shaded by solar panels that will generate power for the site. Each of the courtyards would vary in elevation, joined by gently sloping walkways to offer a different perspective of the surroundings.

"The idea was to get people to stretch and move after sitting in the car," Wenrich said. "You get an understanding of where you are, nestled between the coastal range and the Sierra Nevada."

To conveniently get rid of the construction rubble, he suggests building with blocks made from the rubble enclosed in chicken wire.

Construction is at least another three or four years away, Namba said. The state has $8.1 million earmarked, but the whole project could need as much as $20 million, she said.

Though Wenrich won the contest, Caltrans landscape architects will determine the final design and what will be incorporated from Wenrich's plans.

Rest stops are expensive propositions that pose maintenance challenges, Namba said.

"We get 100 million users every year. That's a lot of flushing toilets," she said.

The idea of rest stops apparently reaches back to ancient times. A few years ago, archaeologists unearthed a 2,000-year-old Roman-built rest stop in Nuess, Germany, that has been dubbed "Big Maximus." They found remnants of a chariot service station, a restaurant and a hotel clustered on what was once a major road from Italy to the North Sea.

The hotel apparently had a slate roof designed to capture the day's heat -- kind of like a solar panel.