The end of an old hotel
Few regretted demolition of historic building in 1959
Our old photo this week shows an old downtown St. Catharines hotel in its last days.
Its window frames are empty. The arcade that used to cover the sidewalk in front of the hotel, on top of which was a veranda accessible to second floor rooms, has already been removed and the ground floor stands hidden behind construction boarding.
By the time this photo was taken — in November 1959 — a large, wood frame commercial building like this was a real survivor from another age, a dinosaur, standing out from its neighbours at a time when all the other commercial buildings of St. Catharines’ downtown were firmly constructed of more durable, fire-resistant materials.
Newspaper reports indicate that the building, which stood at the corner of James and Summer streets, probably had been there as far back as the 1840s.
It is said to have been built as the home of Jacob Noble, the owner of an axe factory that stood a few blocks away, among the other industries that had sprung up adjacent to the old canal, where Canada Hair Cloth later stood.
Several years later Hoble’s residence was converted into a hotel, originally called the Bonney House, after its owner, A. Bonney. It was renamed the Ellis House when, in 1868, Niagara Falls hotel keeper Arthur Ellis moved to St. Catharines and acquired the building. Under a series of different owners the business remained the Ellis House for the next half-century, until about 1920, when it became the Garden City House.
If The Standard’s report on the November 1959 demolition of the building is to be believed, few downtown residents regretted the hotel’s closing and the building’s demolition. The newspaper referred to it as “… for many years a landmark and for many more years an eyesore … long regarded as a canker on the face of the downtown area.”
At the time that report was written final details of the future of the property were still to be worked out, but temporarily the vacant space on that corner was to become a parking lot for customers of C. Wallace Co. Ltd., a St. Paul Street retail store.
And today?
Still a parking lot. C. Wallace Co. has long ago disappeared from the downtown scene, but the parking lot is still there, on the corner of James and Summer streets.
The taller building next door, called the Sandham Building when the Garden City House was being demolished in 1959, was at that time home to J.H. Sandham Electric and the St. Catharines Business College; later it became the home of Stokes Seeds, and is now the James Street Lofts.