“It stems from a love of old buildings.”
Verna Alford is my new favourite person. Unpretentious, genuine and humble – she is not at all what I expected from an entrepreneur who’s been listed as one of the top businesswomen in Canada in numerous magazines over the last decade (she built Alford’s – one of the country’s top furniture stores, based in Regina, from the ground up).
She greeted Derek and me in the newly-restored Grant Hall dining room in jeans and a jean jacket. “I’m just a country girl,” she said when I asked of her background. “I’m much more comfortable talking about the building than I am about myself.”
There is a lot to talk about when it comes to the building.
In this week’s feature on Verna and Grant Hall, Derek weaves pictures of the once beloved luxury hotel built in the latter half of the 1920’s – it was known for weddings (like that of Global’s Kent Morrison’s grandparents pictured in front of the fireplace on the mezzanine on October 25, 1952). Moose Jaw mayor Deb Higgins remembers her husband taking her to the restaurant on the mezzanine for anniversary dinners early on in their marriage.
But as with many buildings – and businesses, the glory days of Grant Hall ended in 1989 when the hotel shut its doors, although I imagine they had been waning for some time – a shot taken in the 70’s shows a front sign to the “Westward Motor Inn,” not exactly a five-star establishment.
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The closure though, was a loss to the city. By 2001, the building had been vacant for a dozen years and was rapidly falling into disrepair. The City of Moose Jaw had a choice – sell it to Verna Alford or another prospective buyer who was ready to demolish the building entirely.
Sitting in the now freshly-restored lounge attached to the dining hall, Verna shows me a photograph of her mother standing in an empty upstairs hotel room after Verna had just purchased the building. “She asked me how much I’d paid for it. I told her a dollar. She said, ‘I’d get your dollar back.’”
Verna laughs about that now.
“I don’t do things to get a whole lot of recognition,” she says. And that was sure. For years, Verna could not get financial backing to complete the project the way she’d envisioned it. During our interview, I wanted to find out why she devoted a dozen years to a project many people said was a waste of time and subjected herself to criticism for keeping with it.
“It stems from a love of old buildings” – and also a love of style – traditional style, decorating and re-creating – and what I know from spending an afternoon with Verna, I believe it also stems from a love of proving people wrong.
Verna could see something that no one else could – even those who remembered the early days of Grant Hall. Those days were long buried under a dropped ceiling and outdated 70’s décor when Verna first stepped foot in the dining room, which created “a feeling of hopelessness because it was so bad.”
Verna didn’t remember the original building, having only dined on the mezzanine one time before, but something resonated with her.
“Verna is an amazing person. She is a wonderful visionary and a very hard worker and she is very persistent,” said Grant Hall manager, Vicki Riendeau.
Verna also had some help from her two brothers, Alvin and Erwin Beug, who were very hands-on. They dug 120 wells for the geothermal heat Alford had put in.
The also enlarged the doorways, did carpentry work, and are still on-site daily.
“So they have fallen in love with the building and it’s their baby,” said Verna, “It’s not just me.”
Grant Hall has a bit of Verna and her brothers in every room. They’ve poured meticulously over every detail. In the recreation room for the Alternative Living space, seniors play snooker on a one hundred year old table that they moved from their farmhouse where they grew up near Quinton, Saskatchewan.
In the fall, Verna received a municipal heritage award from the City of Moose Jaw and a personal thank you from the mayor.
Vicki Riendeau has been overwhelmed by the feedback from patrons. “Thank you, Verna, for doing this for us,” is a written comment the business has received.
That’s what business should be about, right? Something that contributes and gives back. I hope that Verna’s story will encourage other entrepreneurs to take on similar projects – except this time, with fewer obstacles and skepticism.
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