The cover picture depicts the Hotel Windsor in Leask, Saskatchewan. A lone motor vehicle, a 1914 Ford, is casually parked out front. Staff, dressed in their finest attire for the annual sports day, mill about. My grandmother, Marie (Garand) Brad, is second from the right. My grandpa met her when she was working at the hotel. He was a clerk at the grocery store and delivered bread to the hotel daily.
This story is published in the Summer 2022 Issue of Saskatchewan Folklore Magazine.
The windowed area on the upper left was the honeymoon suite (1965).
Main Street Leask 1950s
Inevitably, with the passage of time, the building lost its former splendour. The railway line no longer provided passenger service. The hotel rooms weren’t rented out and the coffee shop was closed, but the bar managed to limp along until the bitter end.
The Paris Cafe | Est. 1917 Leask, SK
Humble Beginnings
Leask was a hamlet, surrounded by bush, that officially became a village in 1912. This was the era of tying your horse to a hitching post and gas lamps that illuminated the muddy streets in the evenings. It was the same year that the Titanic plunged to the bottom of the Atlantic.
The railway line came through in 1911, and it was the daily whistle of the incoming train that brought the unhurried, sleepy hamlet to life. It became evident that there was a need for additional lodging for travellers and people who came to the village on business. If the next train wasn’t scheduled to depart until the following day, passengers needed overnight accommodations. The only available lodgings before the hotel was built were a handful of small rooming houses.
A Regal Structure
In 1912, Emil and Marie Cuelenaere built
the Hotel Windsor on the corner lot where Railway Avenue and Main Street meet. The building was considered regal at the time, with a balcony spanning the front. An upper corner boasted the crowsnest (originally used as a lookout point) with a fire escape ladder clinging to the wall beside it. I am not certain what they looked out for from this vantage point, perhaps an inbound train, a storm or a prairie fire.
Emil and Marie Cuelenaere
The Royal Canadian Legion emblem was proudly displayed. A wood platform, what we would now call a deck, extended across the hotel's front, and wooden sidewalks lined the streets until concrete ones were installed in the 1940s. A fire escape snaked down the back of the structure to an enclosed yard.
Circa 1930s
The Interior
A staircase lead to eighteen hotel rooms, one of which being the honeymoon suite. Coal oil lanterns and then mantle lanterns were used for light as electricity wasn't installed in the village until 1931. Wood burning furnaces were the source of heat.
The windowed area on the upper left was the honeymoon suite (1965).The original decor of the hotel rooms was modest, consisting of curtains, metal framed double beds, small dressers, wooden chairs, throw rugs, lanterns, small scenery pictures on the walls and wash stands with a pitcher and basin. Carpet, overhead lighting and desk lamps were later added as well as wall air conditioning units. Some rooms had washrooms and there was also a communal washroom. Facilities for hotel guests included a dining room where home cooked meals were enjoyed by weary travelers.
The owner’s living quarters shared the hotel kitchen but had a private dining and living area. Off the living room was a washroom and the master bedroom. To get to the second bedroom you had to walk through the main bedroom.
A wood stove was initially used in the kitchen and then a gas stove and a grill were installed after 1967. There was a big square island in the middle where food prep was done. The washing machine and dryer, as well as the ice machine were also in the same room.
Originally, a cistern in the basement was used to store wash water with a hand pump in the kitchen that brought water up from the basement. Sinks for washing dishes were across from the grill. Sewer and running water came to the village in 1962.
The interior walls were finished with white paint and floral wallpaper. The flooring consisted of hardwood and linoleum before carpet was installed.
There was a basement that was used for storage and soft drink tanks were located there with lines that ran up from the tanks to the dispensers in the bar.
What’s In A Name
The original name on the building was The Hotel Windsor, as seen on the sign in the photo. They chose the name Windsor even though the Royal Family was not known as the Windsors until 1917. Through the decades, it was referred to as the Windsor Hotel, the hotel, the beer parlor, the bar or by using the owner's name at the time, i.e. “Ed’s”. It was eventually renamed the Leask Hotel.
The Business Of Running A Hotel
Business was better in the warmer months because in the winter, in the 1930s, for example, motor vehicles could not be used on the snow-clogged roads so people had to use horses and wagons for transportation. This greatly limited the amount of travel they did.
There was a lot of manual labour involved in running a hotel in the early 1900s. Wood was hauled and split for the furnaces and cook stove. Heavy blocks of ice were cut from a nearby lake, packed in sawdust and used throughout the summer for preserving food. Water was hauled in and wastes were taken away. Bedding, towels and tablecloths were laundered on site. Meals were made from scratch. Simple ledger books were used for accounting and managing room bookings. A wooden slotted shelf held the room keys and a wooden filing cabinet kept papers organized. Emil, a meat cutter by trade, butchered meat and made sausage and blood pudding for the restaurant.
Leask 1940s
Main Street Leask 1950sThe Windsor Owners And Staff
Staff were needed for food preparation, cooking, serving, washing dishes, cleaning rooms and doing laundry. It was an exciting time when the hotel opened, as there weren’t many available jobs for the young ladies of the area. Many local people worked in the hotel through the years.
Grandma was in her late teens when she worked at the hotel doing food prep such as peeling potatoes and cooking. She and the girls she worked with, including her sister Lucy, loved to go on the balcony and wave at gentlemen passing by on the street below.
Emil and Marie operated the hotel until they retired to British Columbia in 1942. Their son, George and his wife Mildred, proceeded to manage the business until 1963.
A lady wrote to me that her sister was born at the hotel. Her parents were on their way to the hospital but the baby was coming too soon so they stopped in Leask. Mrs. Cuelenaere delivered the baby, who was so tiny that she thought they should name her Penny.
William and Joan (known as Bill and Bobbie) Pearce owned and operated the business from 1963 to 1975. Their daughter, Joan (Pearce) Rogers, who spent her formative years growing up at the hotel, provided details for that time frame. She recalled walking through her parent's room as a kid to get to her bedroom. The kids were not allowed to run around in the hotel lobby, they stayed in the living quarters. In her later teens she joined her brothers who already had bedrooms upstairs. They were all active in school sports so they didn’t have that much spare time. She and her brothers worked in the bar when they were old enough to do so. At the time, it closed over the supper hour and they were responsible for sweeping the floors during that time. When her parents took vacations they hired trusted friends or relatives (Reg and Gertie Duck, Ken and Cathy Dobson, Caroline and Otto Boechler and Alice Duncan) to run the kitchen and Joan helped with the dishes.
Other owners in subsequent years who operated the bar after hotel rooms were no longer rented out included: Steve Hadada, Tony Hopaluk, Rolly Anderson, Gordon and Greta Verbonac, Emile Chomakwich and Ed Musich. Some had spouses/partners and children who helped out as well.
My mother-in-law worked in the cafe and the bar over the years. She is a friendly, mild mannered woman but she is strong of character and can hold her own. On one occasion while working as a waitress in the café a patron started to choke so she grabbed him around the middle and successfully did the Heimlich Maneuver on him.
On Saturday nights, when the bar was crowded, it wasn’t uncommon for her or other workers to ask rowdy, intoxicated individuals to leave the premises. Often though, the culprits went out the main door, came back in the side door and casually sat back down.
The Coffee Shop Cafe
George renovated the bar area in 1954 and built a pool room across the street. A coffee shop was opened in the hotel.
Cuelenares (George) and then Pearces operated it. Bill Pearce made a request to the liquor commission for approval to close the café as the Paris Cafe served food down the street; his request was granted. Jim and Thelma Hart reopened the coffee shop and managed it as Hart’s Cafe until 1988, when it closed for the last time. Thelma worked at the hotel for many years before they took on the management of the coffee shop/café.
The Beer Parlour
The business was granted a license to sell liquor in 1915, but when prohibition came in 1918 the bar area was temporarily repurposed into an ice cream parlour. Slot machines in the facility go back to the 1930s.
When the pool hall was still attached to the west side of the building and this was where the beer and wine outlet was located until 1932. Originally the area where alcohol was served in a hotel was referred to as the beer parlor. Once ladies became part of the clientele in the early 1960s they were called beverage rooms as the title was thought to have a less seedy connotation. If they wanted females to frequent their establishments then they had to up their game a bit from the dark, dingy, smoke-filled man havens they once were. Leask was one of the first places in the province to allow women into beverage rooms. The 150 seat beverage room was decorated in shades of mocha, rosewood and aqua.
Ladies enjoying a drink in a Saskatchewan beverage room in 1960.
It made good business sense to expand their customer base. I guess it was assumed that if ladies were seated in near proximity to the men that this would temper any raucous behaviour. Even still, there was always someone barred out for bad conduct.
My mom still refers to the hotel bar as the beer parlor. Women were allowed in after WWII, but were required to remain on one side and the men were on the other side. I’m not sure if all the male patrons were thrilled when women were allowed in, but times were changing. According to Mom the gender segregation arrangement didn’t last, and over time men and women were allowed to mingle and sit where they wished. In the 1950s you could purchase a glass of draft beer for $.20.
I asked Mom what beverages were served in the beer parlor and she said beer, wine, and hard liquor. I inquired as to what was used for mix and she thought they drank it straight up "pure and tough".
Performers were brought in, including local musicians, John and Jane. Pool tables, a jukebox, shuffleboard tables, a dance area and upgraded slot machines were added throughout the years. At one point you could bring your empty beer bottles in for recycling.
I remember going into the bar when I turned 19, as that was the legal age at the time. It was dark, smoky and a bit intimidating, but it was a memorable rite of passage. I remember the tables with the brown laminate on top and the chairs with the thinly padded seats.
Where did the honeymoon suite go?
Time Waits For No One
Times changed as they always do, and to keep the doors open, operators had to get creative to find ways to attract customers. The culture shifted from people simply wanting to visit with friends and neighbours to the need to be constantly entertained. In the seventies and eighties, home entertainment options like movie and game rentals became widely available so people stayed home more. Starting in 2005 smoking in beverage rooms was no longer allowed. These changes hurt many small establishments.
Ownership of the hotel changed over the years and it was renovated several more times. The exterior paint colour evolved from white to brownish to blue. The front office was removed and the door to the bar was moved. The aging balcony was taken down, the crowsnest desperately clung to the corner of the building for a few more years before it too had to be removed.
Inevitably, with the passage of time, the building lost its former splendour. The railway line no longer provided passenger service. The hotel rooms weren’t rented out and the coffee shop was closed, but the bar managed to limp along until the bitter end.
Income that once came from room rentals and revenue from the café was no more.
The funds generated weren't enough to offset the costs involved to operate and adequately maintain the structure, let alone restore it.
A Fiery End
The risk of fire was the biggest threat to these rambling old hotels. Sadly, this stoic 99 year old landmark burned to the ground in the early morning hours of February 9, 2011.
The combination of old wood, paint and varnish caused the building to be rapidly engulfed in flames. There was no saving it, all the fire crews could do was work to keep the rest of the nearby buildings from the same fate.
The cause of the fire was determined to be arson. Thankfully, the smoke alarm alerted the owner and lone occupant of the building and he was able to escape the blaze unharmed. Unfortunately, any remaining hotel documents were lost in the blaze.
The night of the fire, The Hubs and I were awakened at three o'clock by a phone call asking for help to fight a fire at the hotel. He went right away and I went in my own vehicle. It was freezing cold but Main Street, usually deserted at that time on a Wednesday night, was bustling with emergency vehicles and onlookers. Fire departments from surrounding communities came to assist.
As ash rained down and the smell of smoke clogged the air all I could do was take a few pictures. It is something that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. It was a sad day for our village. A decade later, the lot where the Hotel Windsor stool remains vacant but for a simple sign acknowledging that it once existed.
The iconic sign protruding from the flames.
Firefighters working to save the
building next door.
A haunting image in the night sky.
View from the rink looking
down Main Street.
In the early 1900s similar hotels were built in small towns across Canada; many still stand today. The Hotel Windsor stood in silent witness to a changing world for almost 100 years; settlers arriving, pandemics, world wars, prohibition, the Great Depression and gender segregation. Embedded in its walls were the stories of the owner's families, staff, and patrons. Many a tall tale was told between those parlor walls.
Information for the story was gleaned from various family histories and the memories of owners, workers and patrons.
Nothing and no one stands alone in a small town. Through writing stories about Leask, I have learned that everything and everyone is intertwined somehow. If you notice any errors or omissions in my stories or if you have additional details and photos please feel free to contact me. I want the stories to be as historically accurate as possible.
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