by Phil Egam – Special to The Sarnia Journal, Then and Now.
(2015) In the late 60s, I worked for a time as a bartender in the old Pine Room of the Vendome Hotel. It was a downstairs bar that could be entered either from the hotel above or from steps leading down from Cromwell Street.
The Pine Room was a small quiet bar with a lot of regular clients. We sold mainly beer, rye, scotch and rum. Fancy drinks were seldom ordered.
Upstairs, the Seaway Room held hundreds and popular rock ‘n roll bands entertained to packed crowds in the evenings. The Vendome was a lively, “happening place” downtown.
Few of its patrons were likely aware of the Vendome’s rich, historic past. Built in 1892 by Laura and Charles Hand, the Vendome hotel, when completed, was the most modern hotel in Western Ontario. Laura Hand had previous experience running the St. Clair House, itself built at a time when there were few buildings on Sarnia’s Front Street.
The Vendome, fronting 94 feet on the east side of Front Street and 120 feet on Cromwell, was constructed in the popular Queen Anne style of architecture of the day, with a slate roof adorning a massive structure of Gothic towers and irregular lines. The four-storey hotel featured 77 guest rooms available from $1.50 to $2.00 per night. Balconies on two levels provided a stunning view overlooking the St. Clair River and the steamship traffic of Ferry Dock Hill. The Vendome’s dining room was one of Sarnia’s finest.
Charles Hand died shortly after the hotel was completed and his widow, Laura, engaged a new managing partner. This was William J. (Billy) Rider. In the meantime, Laura’s son Charles A. Hand had started work as a clerk in the hotel, and it was Charles who took over management of the Vendome in 1916 when Ryder died.
Charles A. Hand would go on to manage the hotel until 1937, through three additions to the hotel and multiple refurbishings. In 1922, the Vendome was leased for a short time to William A. Pollock, a former Sarnia who had most recently been managing a hotel in Jacksonville, Florida, but the Vendome remained owned by Laura Hand until 1937.
That year it was taken over by Mr. G.B. McFarlane of London, Ontario. The new owner invested funds in modernizing the Vendome, including new heating equipment, modern kitchen fixtures, and a self-contained laundry.
Heavily damaged in the 1953 tornado, the Vendome Hotel was repaired and taken over that same year by William and Mabel Soyko. During my time at the Vendome’s Pine Room, I reported to Eddie Soyko, the owners’ son. The Soyko family eventually sold the Vendome to the City of Sarnia in 1979. Except for the popular Seaway Room fronting Christina Street, the famous and once celebrated hotel was finally razed to create a parking lot.
From the days of gas lights, horse-drawn streetcars, and steamships unloading cruise passengers at the foot of Ferry Dock Hill, the gracious old lady that was the Vendome Hotel was once a treasured jewel in the crown of Sarnia’s historic past.