Royal Hotel GM Sol Korngold welcomed about 50 guests last Thursday evening to If These Walls Could Talk, convened in partnership with Community Care for Seniors. Residents shared their stories of the original Royal Hotel, depicted here in an arresting image of the restoration by Ginger Sorbara. (Jason Parks/Gazette Staff)
For one night last week, the walls of Picton’s once faded lady, now fully restored, were talking.
A collaboration between Community Care for Seniors and The Royal, “If These Walls Could Talk” presented stories of the olden days over dinner to a lively and engaged audience of listeners and tale tellers.
Stories ranged over the hotel’s former glory days in the ’40s and ’50s. Separate “Mens” and “Ladies & Escorts” entrances, the grand winding staircase, the salon, the dance hall, and the dining room all hosted a varied but dedicated clientele that kept the tradition of a live band and good times on a Saturday night going for decades.
No recollection was too small,
no tale too tall. Or romantic.
After 2007, the hotel was shut down, left to long years of abandonment and decay.
Local developer Peter Sage couldn’t resist what looked like a great opportunity to rebuild and restore, but those plans were nixxed by fallout from the recession of 2008.
Then former politican and Finance Minister Greg Sorbara stepped in, and brought his entire family in on what would become a decade-long resurrection.
General Manager Sol Korngold said he had been looking forward to this evening for some time. When work on the building’s rehabilitation started in earnest in 2016, he couldn’t go very far without encountering yet another person with an enthralling tale of the storied old hotel, which has stood at the center of Picton Main for close to 150 years.
“Tonight is about stories. It’s about memories and connections and this building that’s been standing on Main Street since the 1880’s,” he said.
No recollection was too trivial, no tale too tall on this night. Or romantic.
“I would not be here today if it were not for The Royal Hotel,” Community Care’s Executive Director Debbie MacDonald Moynes stated plainly. This is most likely true for a good number of County locals — but in Ms. MacDonald Moynes’ case, her origin story starts on the hotel’s fabled front steps in 1955.
Ms. MacDonald Moynes’ mother, Marilyn, was on her way home one Saturday evening after closing up shop at Mason’s Department Store. Her route took her past The Royal. Just then, a young serviceman stationed at Camp Picton, wearing a full leg cast, took a tumble down the front steps.
Family lore holds it was Marilyn’s knock down gorgeous good looks that caused the fall, not anything on offer in the hotel.
Marilyn says she just kept walking, but she must have paused just long enough for Ron MacDonald of the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery to get a good look.
He then asked around about the woman who walked over him Saturday night.
“Everyone knew everyone in Picton in those days,” recalled Ms. MacDonald Moynes. “By asking around, Dad found out where she worked. He went into Mason’s to find her. They got married the next year, and I was born a year after that.”
“Here we are this evening, remembering how The Royal Hotel has impacted our lives. If Dad fell just a few minutes before or after my mom walked by, I wouldn’t be here to tell you the love story of my mom and dad that started on the steps of the Royal Hotel and continued for over 50 years.”
The evening was record for broadcast by County FM 99.3.
Meanwhile, don’t miss The Gazette at Camp Picton this Friday night, February 27, at Base31’s Lecture Hall for more stories of the war heroes who trained — and fell in love — here during WWII. Click here to get your tickets.
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