The Mount Royal Hotel
Digital Rendering of the Current Mount Royal Hotel Courtesy of Brewster Travel Canada
In July 2018, the Mount Royal Hotel will once again open its doors to guests from around the world. Located on the corner of Caribou Street and Banff Avenue, the Mount Royal Hotel has been an integral part of the Town of Banff for 110 years. Severely damaged by a fire on December 29, 2016, the hotel will have been closed for 18 months and will have undergone a $45 million renovation which will once again establish it as the premier accommodation in the heart of Banff. According to Dave McKenna, president of Brewster Travel Canada, “The Mount Royal Hotel is the historic centre of Banff.” It was here that local pioneers like Tom Wilson, Jim Brewster and Jim Simpson would gather by the fire to share a story and a glass of whisky and it was here in the 1930s that Erling Strom would meet and outfit his ski guests for the long trek into Mount Assiniboine Lodge. Banff old-timer Ralphine Locke remembered, “In the winter when the Banff Springs Hotel wasn’t open everyone came here. We spent a lot of time sitting in the Mount Royal Hotel listening to all the stories.”
Originally called the Banff Hotel, what would be renamed the Mount Royal Hotel opened its doors in 1908. A red brick structure with a turreted lead roof, it had 60 guest rooms, a dining room and a billiard room and was owned by Dave and Annie McDougall of Morley. In May of 1912, local outfitter and businessman Brewster purchased the hotel for $75,000, a huge real estate transaction at the time. Within a year he began to make his mark, nearly doubling the capacity of the hotel. Over the next four decades it was expanded, redecorated and modernized, with additions built in both 1944 and 1955 incorporating several lots along Banff Avenue. On March 31, 1967, fire blazed through the hotel destroying the original dining and 60 guest rooms. Despite the intensity of the fire no lives were lost. Novelist Arthur Hailey was a hotel guest at the time and wrote a story for the Calgary Albertan newspaper in which he described the fire — “Never in my life have I seen a more spectacular fire. At its height, just before the walls fell outward, flames and sparks shot 100 ft high.”
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