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Jul 05, 2024
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The historic Grand Hotel in Shaunavon is being restored to look like it did when it opened nearly a century ago.
The hotel opened in 1929, but wasn’t used as a hotel for long before becoming a partial apartment building in the ’50s.
Kent Karemaker, the new owner of the hotel, said buying it was a bit of a flyer.
“Honestly, it was a bit of a dart hitting the map,” said Karemaker. “I just started looking through the MLS listings for something very cheap that I could afford in cash.”
Karemaker added he was looking for a building that he believed would make a good heritage home.
According to Karemaker, he has never done building restoration work before, but it’s something he has always wanted to do.
Karemaker said the last owner also wanted to restore the building but never got around to it.
“He had intentions when he initially bought it to do something similar to what I’m doing now,” said Karemaker. “Everything is original in there, from the brass fire extinguisher hanging in the hallway to the clawfoot bathtubs and the original wall sinks.”
Karemaker added that for the most part, the building’s utilities have been off the past 40 years.
He said the restoration is to return the building as close to its original form as possible.
“I do a lot of antique furniture restoration … and I’m a big proponent for keeping history alive,” Karemaker said. “So I call it sympathetic restoration, meaning I’m not sanding wood down and refinishing everything. I’m making it beautiful again.”
The new owner said he wants to keep as much of the building’s character as possible, noting he wants this to basically be a time warp so people feel like they’re back in 1929.
According to Karemaker, his most daunting task is going to be the heating system.
“I am dedicated to maintaining the steam radiators and they’re all still intact,” he said. “But the boiler system is the original case boiler from the teens, so it won’t function.”
Karemaker added he doesn’t know if he’d be able to use coal even if he wanted to.
The feature he likes the most is the grand staircase in the entrance.
“The building itself has had a very colourful history so it’s very important to the community,” Karemaker said. “There were three murders there in 1940 and so the stories of that lived on. It’s part of the heritage walking tour in town.”
Karemaker just had a new roof put on and said it came at the best time.
“Literally in a rainstorm, water just pours through, so it wasn’t far off from being torn down,” he said.
Karemaker hopes to have the work completed in the next couple of years.