Built in 1910 as one of the leading hotels of the British Columbia interior, The Hotel Kaleden opened in 1911. Its demise came almost immediately as World War I relieved small communities in BC of an economic base, forcing its closure, after which the hotel stood empty until the early 1940s. At this time it was sold and all elements save for the concrete walls removed.
Apparently, the reason that the hotel never reopened after World War I is a simple one - the walls were poured without rebar within and the building was everafter considered unsafe. You'll notice, however, that they still stand...
In 1982 the hotel was purchased by the Regional District Okanagan-Similkameen and has since been incorporated into the
, which has been maintained by volunteers. The community's desire is to see it remain as is, as a park and historic site.
Kaleden Hotel
DESCRIPTION OF HISTORIC PLACE
The Hotel Kaleden was built in 1910 as one of the cornerstone buildings of the Town of Kaleden, designed as one of the leading buildings in the interior of British Columbia. The Hotel Kaleden was one of the first buildings to feature electric light, running water, private sleeping porches, and exclusive dining rooms. Opened in 1911, the Hotel operated until the beginning of World War 1 when the economic bases of British Columbia communities collapsed. The building sat empty until the early 1940’s when it was sold and dismantled. The shell of the building has since sat idle and was sold to the Regional District Okanagan-Similkameen by Fred King in 1982.
HERITAGE VALUE
Robert Hobson, Hobson and Associates, completed an Okanagan Similkameen Heritage Resource Inventory, in March 1988. The Kaleden Hotel was defined as a Class ‘B’ site:
containing features worthy of conservation, with a total score of 80. Sites were evaluated using architectural (40 points), cultural (40 points) and contextual criteria (20 points). Points were removed for desecration. All sites were then assessed for historic, economic, institutional, and architectural representativeness.
The Hotel Kaleden stages of development were classed under first fruit farming (1902 - 1918), with transportation and commerce as the best represented economic activities.
The Kaleden Hotel Regional Park has been maintained by volunteers and it is the desire of the community to see the shell maintained into the landscape of the park. The structure was dedicated with a plaque honoring pioneer families.
IDENTIFICATION
The structure is entirely of concrete construction, the concrete having a fairly rough, “board-marked” finish, both internally and externally. The building is four storeys high and approximately 20.5 metres long by 12.5 metres wide, on plan; the walls are 300 mm thick.
The north, west and east elevations of the structure are penetrated with arched window openings approximately 1.8 m wide by 1.8 m high at 3.0 m centres, forming a band of near continuous fenestration at each floor level.
The south elevation is a continuous solid wall except for a central, vertical strip of openings, each measuring approximately 1.9 m wide by 2.1 m high.
From a visual inspection it appears that all walls of the structure are reasonably “true” and vertical and free from overall structural deformation.
The concrete, although frequently characterized by surface “honeycombing” generally appears quite dense and of good integrity. It can be seen that a quite large size of coarse aggregate has been used (1.5 -2”) in the concrete and also coarse, gritty, sand. However, it must be observed that these materials have provided an exceptionally durable concrete, as there are few, if any, signs of weathering, spalling or other frost damage, even though the building is close to 95 years old.
The concrete “shell” is all that remains and may be viewed as an “Exoskeleton”; it is believed that in its original condition there was an internal timber construction which existed almost as a separate weatherproof building within the concrete outer shell.
From the RDOS Heritage Register