The Famous Empress Hotel | Only Operational for two years | Destination Adventure

in the northwest corner of british columbia right on the alaska border there are two towns in different countries operating essentially as one community on the u.s side we have hyder alaska population about 60 people two restaurants one bar that's it [Music] then there's stuart british columbia population about 400 two grocery stores three cafes a gas station a school and on the corner of fourth and brightwell is the empress hotel history of the empress as as i understand it and i put pieces together was originally built by a german financier who was basically creating a train hotel it was in in concert with the train line that was here the portland shoreline and uh his name was alvon alvin schlieben quite the handle uh and he was he was actually one of bc's earliest millionaires and a promoter and money guy out of vancouver he figured build it big and build it downtown like center he built a pender block in vancouver and he was attached attached to a lot of big german money [Music] the hotel was quite large i believe it had 72 rooms 48 on the perimeter 24 on each floor and then 12 in the interior on each floor those were the cheap rooms on the inside you got you got a view of the other window and then there was a light vent that and ventilation i guess in general but there were glass pyramid uh skylights on the top when it was originally built i only saw that in one old picture and after that they would they put a gabled roof on there and that's what but the glass the original glass is still laying up in the attic in the dust [Music] it ran for a couple years but somewhere in that time between 1910 it was built in 1910 and the first world war in 1914 the town died here he was in england trying to raise money in europe and he was coming back as war broke out and he must have got wind that they were going to throw him in jail as a german national and he didn't even come back to canada he came back to the states on the washington side and somewhere along the line he lost control of the property in the early 20s it was purchased by a manigula who actually owned it from the 20s right through to the 1980 or so when i bought it uh it was never really a hotel again it was it was the town hall for a long time i know up in into the 60s and 70s or 60s anyways then it became a shop after that i bought the empress as a hardware store for a hardware store at the time and it had been used as a shop pretty much the building itself was starting to sag i lifted it about six inches in the center took the the top sag out of it but for the most part it was in pretty good shape it was it was all fur construction and and little rooms so it was just it was if it fell down the top two three floors would have fallen together uh and probably stayed intact i did start to renovate but the neighborhood wasn't really the was the problem in trying to renovate it to a to a classy hotel i'd still think it could be a it would make a good hostel or pension or something of that nature [Music] here we are inside the old empress hotel i have permission to come and do a walk through here and it's crazy this old building still has power on now i'm in the bottom floor right now and this would have been all um like restaurant and bar the largest bar in british columbia used to be right here that was it i guess that was their claim to fame one thing that i noticed that i thought was really cool is the original trim still up there see that old trim all along there very cool beautiful staircase here and this would have been i'm assuming original wallpaper that's pretty cool this is interesting curious what this would have been for now you can see the original glass wavy in there 1986. not that old coin laundry beautiful old doors and one thing i noticed that's pretty neat is above these doors all these windows are on hinges i haven't seen that before so this is again original wallpaper wow look at the color actually i never noticed that until i put the light right up to it that's cool oh ah yes this is one so this building has light shafts some people that have been in here they think that this is an old elevator shaft but this building it has two of those light shafts going down it so that the interior rooms have some light so there'll be rooms on each side of that with a light going into it look at this chair it's like looking at the corner hmm here's a good example of one of the light shafts that's so cool that box has a some writing on it but i can't quite make it out from here pretty neat though hmm hey this is cool these are insulators for the original wiring usually when you see those it's up on the ceiling uh because that's what the lights would've been hanging from [Music] whoa check this thing out how fun is that that's neat um let's go up another level i know the man that owns this uh his kids used to spend the summers here when they were very young and used to play around in the hotel here and then later they fixed up one of these suites and i actually lived in it so i'll show you guys that this here i mean it's been many years now since anyone's lived in here so it's much different but how beautiful is this like it's all this is industrial sector now but it wasn't always you just imagine living here looking out over the town huh interesting spot for a door check this out how crazy is that look at this [Music] this is uh like first generation fire extinguisher i want to take it right out of there i hate to break that so cool though that's actually the first one of those i've ever seen in person very cool [Music] here we go one more level up not much up here this is a the light shaft from up top though what do you guys think i mean it's perfectly balanced on there oh yeah wow you guys know not a huge fan of heights so let's get out of here [Music] i won't lie to you i enjoyed none of that i'm more or less just assuming but i doubt anything was actually up here on this third level probably just storage and stuff like that but sure is beautiful and you know what for its age this building is in surprisingly good condition yeah see you can see up there the uh insulator from the lights that would have been up there i'll show you guys something really cool when we were in antioch we found a giant pile of exactly these these ones have a number eight on them the ones in antioch had a number five none of us knew what they were for until right now check this out [Music] it's a window counterweight so when you open this i mean it's pretty sticky now but before it was all sticky you could open it counter 8 would go down you can see the pulley up there that's cool i like that sweet freaking shoes dude there you go toasters whoa whoa look at this thing [Music] that's cool super cool [Music] that's my whole swinger [Music] mm-hmm that's it back to the apartment i tell you i can't get over this though super nice [Music] going into stuart i knew i definitely wanted to do a story on the empress hotel because it caught my eye immediately when i was rolling into town it is the biggest building in town by a landslide so thank you frank for letting me go and do that story and he'll actually be making an appearance in the channel once more a little bit down the road and i'm really excited about that story as well huge thank you to my patrons i'm heading back north now and the gas is a dollar ninety a liter up there so i'm really thankful to have your guys support and i can't wait to share the whole trip with you guys as always take nothing but pictures leave nothing but footprints i'll catch you on the next one so [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Destination Adventure

Views: 137,550

Keywords: abandoned, urbex, urban exploring, history, historic, discovery, discovered, preserved, Hotel, remote, untouched, adventure, explore, BC, British Columbia, Canada, Nat Geo, Documentary, Motorhome, MoHo, Tiny Home, Travel, Road Trip, Nomad, Nomadic

Id: aorx3dtsZ3k

Length: 17min 38sec (1058 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 17 2021