Royal assent

The Royal Hotel awaits a regal renovation.

County council unanimously welcomes redesign for Picton hotel

When councillors met with Greg Sorbara, the new owner of the shuttered Royal Hotel in Picton, to approve in principle his plan to revamp and revitalize the old building, some began to reminisce about its storied past.

“If the Royal Hotel could talk, could actually tell stories, they’d be pretty colourful and pretty spicy. And they might have changed the more staid mythology of our loyalist heritage here,” said councillor Bill Roberts.

In its heyday, the Royal was a buzz of activity, with a history of youthful debauchery and rooms sometimes rented by the hour.

Councillor David Harrison recalled heading to the upstairs rooms at the Royal as a kid to wake up those who may have only just gone to bed after a night at the pub in order to recruit them as tomato pickers for one of the County’s canning factories.

In response, the slightly more senior councillor Roy Pennell pointed out that some of the older people in the room are quite happy the Royal’s walls can’t talk.

Sorbara, who is a former finance minister for Ontario, purchased the Royal two years ago. Since then, he has been working to come up with the best possible redesign for the hotel. Sorbara has worked with the County’s heritage advisory committee (PEHAC) and ERA, the architect firm that helped the County develop its case for designating Picton’s main street as a heritage area.

“Ever since I bought this property, I’ve been hearing stories. Wonderful stories. Councillor Gale’s mother used to cook there when she was young, and other people who don’t want to mention how many times they got thrown out because they had consumed too much in the men-only area,” Sorbara says. “This was the centre of town and the centre of social life, so people spent a lot of time there. We hope to bring that back in the sense that we want this not just to be another hotel or restaurant, but to be the centre of activity, or of some of the activity that takes place in the County.”

Unlike recent projects in the County that have received a high level of criticism, Sorbara seems to value the history and heritage of the property. Before the Picton United Church was demolished in 2010, he had made an offer to buy and restore it, but that offer was rejected.

At the Royal, he intends to maintain history.

“Because of the story that I heard about rousing the workers who were a little bit stewed before they could go pick tomatoes, I am hoping, over the course of the next year, to develop a half-hour or a one-hour history of the Royal and its return,” Sorbara told council.

Working with local historian and filmmaker Peter Lockyer, Sorbara wants to interview those who recall the Royal’s history, incorporated with footage of the hotel in its current state and the work that will be done to revitalize it.

The plan will involve a near complete demolition, with the façade at the front and sides of the building protected by steel beams while the work is in progress. The back of the building will be completely modernized, with glass, brick and steel structures over a patio.

The second and third floor façades will remain the same on the front and sides of the building, but the main floor façade will be a more modern glass and steel. This is one design detail PEHAC disagreed with. Councillor Treat Hull, who put forward a motion to approve the project, said the new design was beautiful, and the first floor design was acceptable.

“The first floor is not heritage designated, the second and third floors are. The ground level has to embody good design and craftsmanship according to our heritage conservation district,” Hull said. “A minor critique of the windows and doors is an exercise in personal taste, and is not appropriate to include in a recommendation for adoption in council.”

Many around the council table agreed with Hull on this point.

After a 15-minute discussion, it was clear there was strong support for Sorbara’s plan, and vote to approve it was unanimous. Council met to ratify approval of the plan yesterday evening (after press time). Prior to the meeting, Mayor Robert Quaiff encouraged the public to attend, so that the process remained transparent.

Sorbara says that once the project is approved and the steel beams are mounted to protect the façade, he expects the doors to open on the new Royal Hotel in two years.

“This is a first of a kind for me, so I’d thought that we would be able to begin earlier,” says Sorbara. “But in retrospect, I’m glad we’ve had these two years to work out all of the planning issues, to work out the planning issues, to work out the design issues, and to know exactly what it is that we want to build, and to resolve things like the heritage issues. I mean, this is an iconic building, for Picton and the County. And we had to get it right. We worked with ERA, we worked with the County officials, and I think we got it right.

“We’re not trying to preserve the past. We’re trying to take our heritage and ensure that it is reflected in where we’re going in the future.”