How The Courtyard Inns (Vernon Lodge) was started. Letter by original owner/operator Maynard Vollan (January 5th, 1992) requested by daughter Heather Martens
Hi Heather
Courtyard Inn was started in the early 1970’s at a breakfast meeting in an Edmonton pancake house. Vollan Construction had just finished a shopping centre addition to the Bonaventure Hotel in Edmonton and was preparing to sue the
owner for payment. The owner’s lawyer was Aaron Shtabsky. After a meeting to resolve the payment problems, Aaron phone me. Because of my experience on doing commercial real estate development, he asked if I would meet and help a group in Grande Prairie. I agreed to become a partner in the Grande Prairie Motor Inn was the result. In later years, the hotel was increased to 108 and later 216 bedrooms. By the way the owner of the Bonaventure Hotel was an old neighbour of yours from Vernon by the name of Karl Sorvick. They lived on the lake in the red brick house immediately in front of mom’s friend Judy’s old house. Over the next few years different partners and myself build, operated for a short time and eventually sold motels ranging up to 100 bedrooms in Edmonton, Lethbridge, Grande Cache and Grande Prairie. Part of the Grande Prairie Inn group also bought the partially contracted Regency Hotel in Edmonton. Like the Grande Prairie Inn, the Regency catered to construction workers and relied heavily on a large tavern not unlike the one in the Coldstream in Vernon. As we became more experienced, we tended away from the tavern hotels. Without partners in 1974 and 1975 constructed the 140 bedrooms in Vernon and Red Deer Lodges. At the same time the Brandon Red Oak Inn and the Edmonton Mayfield Inn were also being built. These were the first atrium hotels in Canada. Vernon was also unique in that it had a natural creek running through the atrium. This was primarily because I could not devise a suitable plan that the creek did not wreak. Finally in frustration, not brilliance, I left the creek running through the atrium. This caused the government officials all kinds of problems, as they never had to deal with an atrium before, never less one with a fish filled creek running through the middle of it. The next few years were really good in the hotel business. Aaron and I purchased the Edmonton Inn and immediately doubled it’s size to 440 bedroom. We also bought the 240 bedroom Regina Inn and completely remodelled it. I also built the 190 bedroom Lethbridge Lodge and 254 bedroom Saskatoon Inn, both atrium convention hotels. Red Deer was increased to 230 bedrooms. All the hotels, mostly at your mothers insistence, had lots of plants and lots of windows. This was really unique in 1980. Another distinguishing feature was the incorporation of disco night clubs with dancing instead of “Coldstream” type taverns. I believe the disco in the Vernon Lodge was the first west of Toronto. The economic slow down in Western Canada in the early 1980’s stopped the expansion. The Grande Prairie Motor Inn, the Recency and the Vernon Lodge disposed of and in 1990 the old 190 bedroom Edmonton Holiday Inn was purchased and completely renovated as a small meeting and convention hotel. The mode of operating Courtyard Inn is different from most hotel chains. Nearly all decisions, including purchasing, marketing, accounting, renovations, are made at the hotel level. Our head office consists of only myself and two girls. This is opposed to say Coast Hotels who, when I met with them two years ago were doing roughly the same volume of business but had 23 people in head office. Most chains, until recently, also rotated their managers between hotels every couple of years. Several of our general managers were the opening managers when the hotels were built and we have not had a general manager change in the last five years. Maybe, I’m not tough enough on them. Actually, I feel very strongly that if they are left basically on their own, the managers will take a greater interest, adapt to the local market and become part of the community. As all the hotels are primary meeting and convention properties, in the further were must keep trying to be the leaders with new innovations in design and service. For example, most of our meeting and banquet rooms now have large windows, many of our general manager and catering desks are now completely open in the hotel lobbies and equipped with computers that let them access nearly all the hotels information and send out contracts from internal fax boards while still talking to the customer on the phone. With my experience in design, construction and night clubs the best opportunities future for expansion are in acquiring existing tired hotels and modernizing them like we did with the old Edmonton Holiday inn. This is not a priority as we are a relatively small chain and get much more satisfaction in trying to be innovators and leader in the locals we operate. I hope this helps you with your report and everything else is going well. If any of the above is not clear or you need further info phone. I tried to find some brochures but it looks like we threw most of them out.
