Bellevue Hotel a former historic family home
The Bellevue Hotel, once an important landmark in Okanagan Mission, did not begin its life as a hotel.
The original building was a family home called “Craigielea” built in 1898 by Gifford R. Thomson (great grandfather of MLA Steve Thomson) for his wife Harriett and nine children, the last one, Jock, born in Canada.
The eldest was Dorothea, later to become Dorothea Walker, the first teacher in Kelowna who has a school named for her.
The Thomsons came to Canada from the Shetland Islands in 1892 and lived for a time in the Benvoulin area before constructing the new home near the corner of Collett and Lakeshore roads in the “heart of Okanagan Mission.”
Gifford Thomson cleared the land for an orchard while being a mail driver between Okanagan Mission and Vernon.
The home was sold to A.B. Carle in 1905 and then to J.H. Baillie in 1907 and became a hotel at that time. An advertisement in the “Kelowna Courier and Okanagan Orchardist” newspaper in the fall of that year read: “The Bellevue Hotel is now open to receive guests. Rates, two dollars per day. Beautiful situation on the lakefront, close to new wharf. Livery stable in connection. Fishing, shooting and boating. J.H. Baillie, prop.”
Baillie also donated the land that nearby St. Andrew’s Anglican Church was built on in 1911.
The hotel was operated under several owners for nearly five decades. In its early years it truly was the focal point of Mission society along with the church, the store (1909) and the school (1917).
The hotel property was located just off Lakeshore Road and was bounded by Okanagan Mission Supply Store (later Hall Brothers) on the west, the school (until it burned down in 1949) on the east, Collett Road on the south and Sawmill Creek (now Bellevue Creek) on the north. In the very early days, access to Kelowna was by Swamp Road (built in1894) until the LakeshorePandosy connection went through in 1912 and was further developed in 1934.
The C.P.R. government dock at the foot of Collett Road was a stop on the sternwheeler route and people and supplies were brought in from there and delivered by horse and buggy or wagon.
Supplies also included dynamite for the Kettle Valley Railway (KVR) construction in the hills nearby. Apples and other produce from the Mission area were also loaded up at the dock.
The hotel serviced Okanagan Mission as the area grew. Unlike other hotels in the city, the Bellevue was in a country setting surrounded by fields and farms.
The community attracted a large number of people from overseas, particularly Britain, who came out to farm, plant orchards and begin a new life. Some were known as remittance men – Immigrants from Britain paid by the family back home to stay away for various reasons, maybe they were the “black sheep” of the family. Some were wealthy, many were not. They arrived by sternwheeler -including the” Sicamous” – by stage coach, horse or later by Model T Ford. The hotel served Okanagan Mission, which at the time was in the centre of the Okanagan land boom, and it became a community distinct form Kelowna.
The hotel was a wooden frame two-storey structure with a kitchen, dining room and bar on the first floor, and eight bedrooms and a balcony on the second. The earth basement was entered from the outside and the main entrance faced south.
The building was white with an off-red trim. The property had an abundance of purple and white lilacs and a couple of large chestnut trees which lived a long time after the hotel was gone.
There were several out buildings, stables and fields. In 1911, the Bellevue Hotel annex was built to comply with licensing regulations and it also was used as a bunkhouse for the KVR workers.
It was like a community hall where dances, plays and social gatherings took place even though it was not licensed after 1920. There was even a make-shift hospital in tents behind the hotel at one time and there may also have been a cricket pitch. The first phone line in Okanagan Mission went in April 29, 1909 at the Bellevue.
The “hey day” for the Bellevue Hotel was from 1910 to 1920, especially during the construction of the Kettle Valley Railway from 1910-1915 and in the boom year 1913. Many workers came down via Chute Lake Road to the hotel to enjoy some R & R and the bar with its fine list of cigars, wines and spirits.
After its opening in 1915, the KVR connected the Okanagan and the Kootenays with the Coast as the new line joined the C.P.R at Hope. Many changes occurred during that time and there was much new settlement. The South Kelowna Land and Orchard Company promoted it in Britain and advertised the Bellevue Hotel as being the centre of Okanagan Mission townsite and a first class hotel.
After 1920, there was an influx of settlers which led to land clearing, fencing, cultivation and irrigation. From that time on the hotel had great dining facilities for many functions and in the 1930’s many school children came over and bought lunch for 25 cents.
After the school burned down in 1949 the Bellevue annex was used for classrooms until the building of Okanagan Mission School on Eldorado Road in 1950. Old minutes from St. Andrew’s Church indicate that meetings were often held at the Bellevue.
They took place in the “smoking room” which was near the front door opposite the bar. My aunt remembered that to get to the “smoking room” you came in through the right hand door into a hallway and then into the dining room. Just off the hallway was the “smoking room.”
In 1939 a grand event for the Bellevue was the pheasant hunt dinner.
This article is part of a series submitted by the Kelowna Branch, Okanagan Historical Society.