308 Fort Street - Vendome Hotel

© 2015, Christian Cassidy

Place: Vendome Hotel
Address: 308 Fort Street (Map)
Opened: December 17, 1898
Architect: Henry Griffith (1903 expansion)
Contractor: John Hodgins (1903 expansion) 
Cost: $14,000 (1898)

Top: Hotelier David Murray
Bottom: December 27, 1898, Winnipeg Tribune

The Hotel Vendome was built in 1898 at a cost of $14,000. Excavation began in June and its liquor licence was granted in November. The hotel opened on December 17, 1898, just in time for the holidays.

The man behind the hotel was David Murray who came with his young family and brother William from Sault Ste Marie in 1897. It is unclear whether he had a hotel background.

Murray bought up a number of properties in the downtown and had investments in rural Manitoba as well.

The hotel was a family affair. His brother, William, was a partner in the venture and when David's sons, William and Stewart, were old enough they joined the management.

1922 - 23 Tribune ad

The Hotel Vendome, (it switched around the name to be the Vendome Hotel after 1927), advertised itself in the 1920s as "One of the most homelike and quiet hotels" in the downtown and that was probably correct. When researching downtown hotels I usually come across many stories of liquor violations and crimes by owners or guests. The Vendome had little of that. It appears to have been a quiet hotel run by a quiet family.

In its first decade or so, the hotel was associated with the 90th Winnipeg Battalion. They held a number of their annual dinners there. It was also where Joe Hall resided for a few weeks while sorting out his hockey future after the Brandon Rowing Club lost the 1904 Stanley Cup finals to the Ottawa Silver Seven.

The Vendome had a number of long term guests. Newspapers reported about Murray hosting a dinner in their honour before they moved on. One of them was scientist Reginald Buller, (also see), who founded the botany department at the University of Manitoba in 1904. He lived there from 1905 to 1913.

 
Top:: Orpheum, National, Vendome ca. 1920s (Source: Streetcar356)
Bottom: Night view ca. 1915 (Source: Archives of Manitoba)

It is likely that some famous people visited the Vendome as an overnight guest or at the very least to the hotel's bar and restaurant after the Orpheum Theatre opened across the street in 1910.

Of all the vaudeville chains, the Orpheum circuit was probably the best known as it had continental reach. (Others, like Pantages was confined to the U.S. Pacific Northwest and Western Canada.)

The Orpheum theatre chain was part of Radio Keith Orpheum (RKO) Corporation which consisted of a theatre chain, radio network and eventually one of Hollywood's great movie studios. The best performers would graduate up from the theatre circuit to radio and film. Bob Hope, for instance, played Winnipeg's Orpheum in 1930 and moved up the RKO ladder to be a radio, then film star. In February 1923, Houdini and Jack Benny shared the theatre bill for a week.

The Victoria Theatre (later renamed the National Theatre) stood next door to the Vendome at 302 Fort Street from 1912 to 1926.

May 29, 1923, Winnipeg Tribune

One of the strangest guests the hotel had came in May 1923.Charles Loeder, the night clerk, found a bear cub wandering down Portage Avenue and brought it back to the hotel.

It spent the day there, had a lunch of bread, apples and a quart of milk and pint of beer before going to sleep. It was claimed that night by its owner.

December 14, 1903, Winnipeg Free Press

As for the building itself, the original architect and contractor are not mentioned in the papers. The 1903 annex, which added 40 rooms to the rear of the building, was designed by architect Henry Griffith and built by contractor John Hodgins.

A barber shop was added in 1918.

In 1937, the hotel underwent extensive renovations.

Fires were the biggest fear for any hotelier. The closest call the Vendome had came in December 1955 when the five-storey Huron and Erie building on Portage Avenue at Fort Street, which backed onto the hotel, was destroyed by fire.

The night clerk at the hotel was the first to notice the fire and summoned the fire department. The 30 or so guests, including four boys' curling teams from rural Manitoba, were evacuated. The hotel just suffered water damage.

October 17, 1921, Winnipeg Tribune

David Murray died in 1920 and son Stewart took over the running of the establishment. Stewart died in 1945.

Shea's Brewery bought the hotel in the early 1950s. Breweries reluctantly got into the hotel business in the 1930s as failing hotel owners who owed them money simply walked away from their establishments. Shea's actually embraced its new found hotels and invested in renovations.

Labatt's bought out Shea's in the mid-1950s and in 1964 began divesting itself of the hotel properties. Like a few other Labatt hotels, the Vendome became part of the Gordon Hotel chain.

Top: December26, 1964, Winnipeg Free Press

Below: October 26, 1971, Winnipeg Free Press

The Gordon Hotel chain invested heavily in its downtown properties to modernize them for budget conscious travellers. 

Entertainment in 1960s bars meant live music and the Vendome's bar was renovated and rechristened the "Gay 90's", (a reference to the Klondike gold rush.) Gordon sold the hotel in 1977.

In the late 1980s the Vendome's bar became one of Winnipeg's first sports bars.

Hotel owner Ray Dudar, manager Ed Romanik, and former Blue Bombers Joe Poplawski and Dan Huclack teamed up to create Bleachers Sports Bar. Romanik would go on to own the hotel until at least 2016.

The hotel has since been sold and internal renovations to the bar area and rooms, particularly on the fourth floor, have taken place.

Related:
My Vendome Hotel photo album on Flickr