Seaforth’s Commercial Hotel: The Handsomest Building the County

The Commercial Hotel as seen from the north. It is one of Seaforth’s most substantial buildings.

The Commercial Hotel, which stands on the east side of Seaforth’s Main Street, is one of the most imposing buildings in the area.

Since 1895, the three-storey structure has hosted thousands of weary travellers and continues to provide first-class accommodation.

The Commercial Hotel is also one of the area’s most storied buildings.

The original Commercial Hotel was built by Thomas Knox in 1860. Knox sold it to Thomas Sharpe, in 1866, who in turn sold it to Alex Davidson who owned it in the early morning hours of April 17, 1895, when fire destroyed the hotel.

Undismayed, Davidson rebuilt an even grander three storey brick hotel in under six months at the considerable cost of $7,450.

According to the Huron Expositor, Davidson spared little expense in making his hotel as comfortable as possible.

Pipes brought water to the hotel’s bathtubs where there was one on each floor, electric lighting was installed throughout the substantial building while “beautiful tapestry” carpeting decorated the third floor.

A large livery stable with an attentive groom was also a major hotel asset.

The grand exterior had a second-floor verandah running the building’s 100-foot street-length of the building would have been an impressive site for travellers arriving at the main entrance by train or stage.

The raised brick on the front proudly announced the new building as the Commercial Hotel. Advertised rates for accommodation were $1.00 per night for room, supper, breakfast and hay for the horses, according to a former employee, Dorothy Butt.

The Expositor pronounced the new Commercial Hotel as “one of the most homelike and attractive hotels in this country.”

As with all hotels named Commercial, Seaforth’s Commercial Hotel attracted a variety of salesmen, medical quacks, phrenologists, palmists and, perhaps, less reputable professionals.

Travelling salesmen who sold everything from wigs to fine chinaware to millinery wares often visited the Commercial where they would rent a sample room to display their goods.

Before Eaton’s catalogue, travellers sold products that could not be purchased locally. Besides the medical charlatans, there were genuine specialists and dentists who rented rooms to provide much needed relief to suffering patients.

One wonders, however, about the treatment rendered by the chiropractors who held regular office hours at the Commercial who advertised electric shock treatment.

The Commercial hotel housed a barbershop until 1960 where travelling men could get a shave and a haircut before greeting the public.

With so many farm and livestock auctions taking place on the premises, the hotel also had a ‘Farmers Bank.’

From 1895, an express and telegraph office occupied the premises at the Commercial. With its proximity to the railroad, the travelling public could check into the hotel, send or receive telegraph wires and forward packages through the express agency located in the hotel.

The Commercial was also a way station on the stagecoach run, and, later, bus routes that went through town.

Locally, the Commercial hosted many of Seaforth’s clubs, societies and fraternities. The Freemasons, Oddfellows and, later, the Lions Clubs held dinner meetings at the Commercial (The Lions hold meetings at the Commercial).

Many of Seaforth’s sporting teams like the Cricket, Lawn Bowling, Baseball and Hockey Clubs held their organizational meeting over dinner meetings at the Commercial.

In 1896, at the behest of the Dominion Government, the aged veterans of 1866 Fenian scares were asked to attend an important meeting to determine their eligibility for the Fenian Raid medal.

During the Great War, A. A. McLennan, the Commercial’s proprietor held Red Cross fundraising and other events to support the war effort. During the Great War, the Commercial, like other hotels across the country, experienced a noticeable drop in business.

In March 1920, McLennan closed the hotel to the public. The Huron Expositor lamented that the Commercial’s closure “rather badly handicapped” Seaforth.

Fortunately for Seaforth, the Commercial was sold in January 1922, to Charles and Fanny Dungey.

The Dungey’s had been hotel keepers in Mitchell since 1911 and, perhaps, no other family name is more associated with the Dungey’s whose over 40-year proprietorship of the hotel revived the Commercial’s importance as an important regional destination.

The Dungey’s completely renovated the building. Gone were the spittoons in the dining room and the hallways and the rooms were furnished on a “parity with the King Edward Hotel” in Toronto, according to the paper.

The second-floor verandah was removed in the late 1920s due to safety concerns.

In 1937, Charles Dungey died, at age 58, leaving his wife, Fanny, and three children to operate the hotel.

The Commercial continued to be an important social and economic centre but since 1914, in Huron County, the hotel business had to contend with the Canada Temperance Act, which made the buying and selling of alcohol illegal.

The Commercial’s barroom had been licensed prior to 1914 but during the ‘Dry’ decades, Prohibition seriously handicapped all hotels.

Although, in 1923, it did not stop the Commercial’s tavern keeper, John Hawthorne, from selling bottles of liquor outside the hotel’s back door.

In September 1922, he was charged and convicted of selling illegal liquor but was acquitted on appeal by a sympathetic judge.

After Huron County repealed Prohibition in 1959, the Commercial was again licensed again and Fanny Dungey made extensive renovations to the Commercial.

Mayor Edmund Daly and Fanny cut the ribbon officially opening the Commercial which had been renovated from “top to bottom” according to the Huron Expositor.

Hundreds came to the open house to see the new upper floor bathrooms and new wall-to-wall carpeting in the licensed “Highland Room” lounge.

The renovations did not revive the hotel’s clientele as the Dungey family sold the Commercial in July 1964 to John Chernes who then sold it to Joe and Mary Czerwinski.

In 1976 Rene Dupuis took over the ownership of the Commercial. In 1979, Dupuis spent $100,000 enlarging the lounge area and adding a modern kitchen.

Dupuis recalls the hotel having 36 rooms upstairs with about 15 regular weekly renters. However, the licensed lounge room with live entertainment is where the money was made.

Dupuis said, with 13 employees, business was good until the more stringent Drinking and Driving laws came into effect in the 1980s.

In 1988, Dupuis sold the hotel to Maurice Hamouth. Over the next decades, the Commercial went through a series of owners and business ventures such as the Lager House in 2006. Despite extensive renovations, outdoor patio and live entertainment, the pub no longer operates.

In 2008, Peter Klaver purchased the Commercial Hotel from Jason Wheatley.

A great deal needed to do to the old hotel, Klaver said. He replaced the two buildings’ two leaky roofs and remodeled the hotel’s 36 rooms into 17 apartments.

Klaver restored 8,000 square feet of the 17,000 square foot interior's original flooring. He also added architectural flourishes of his own including two iron horse heads on the building's north side; wrought iron fencing across the front; and adorned with metal sculptures of Klaver's own craftwork.

Throughout the past 130 years, the Seaforth Commercial Hotel has been at the centre of the area’s social and business life. Designated part of the town’s Heritage District in 1984, like Cardno Hall, the Commercial Hotel is one of the county’s signature buildings.

Seaforth is almost impossible to visualize without the grand hotel standing proud astride the east side of Main Street. The Commercial Hotel remains one of the “handsomest buildings in the County.”