OUR HISTORY

Welcome to the Royal Hotel. You've just stepped into a Chilliwack landmark and heritage site. The Royal has been serving customers from this location since 1908-a reflection then of Chilliwack's growth and now of Chilliwack's history.

A recent renovation of the Royal, begun in May 1996, captures the wealth of that history to take the Royal into the future. It's also enabled us to reinvent the Royal as Chilliwack's historic bed-and-breakfast venue. We hope that you enjoy your visit and that part of your enjoyment stems from gaining a sense of local history. If there is anything that we can do to make your visit to the Royal more pleasurable, please let us know.

The Royal's past encompasses numerous changes, to itself and to the community of which it is so much a part. Some of the changes to the Royal were forced on it by the natural calamities so common in earlier times, and others were initiated to modernize and enlarge the facility. This latest facelift restores the Royal while upgrading it for the greater convenience and pleasure of its guests and visitors.

For your safety and comfort, the Royal's antiquated boiler has been replaced with four high-efficiency 10-ton gas rooftop heating units. In addition, a modern sprinkler system has been installed. And each room has been given its own bath and toilet facilities, a vast improvement over the one-bathroom-per-floor amenities of yesteryear. In fact, 20 of the Royal's 34 rooms have been modernized, with new carpet and furnishings. But amid these changes, the main goal remained to preserve the quaint look and feel of this historic venue.

The remaining 14 rooms at the Royal have been redone in a heritage style. Each of their original hardwood floors has been beautifully restored. Even the old cast-iron water heaters, now nonfunctional, remain in place after having been sandblasted clean and re-coated. Claw foot tubs, suggestive of earlier times, have been put in place. And antique furniture completes the picture.

For literally a picture of local and Royal history take the time for a good look at the many photographs adorning the walls of the Royal Hotel's lobby and restaurant facilities. Depicted are events and people from our past.

Prominent in those photographs are members of the Berry family, which owned and operated the Royal Hotel from 1926 until 1995. Buck Berry, among the most colorful members of that family, in 1950 united the Royal Hotel with the adjacent Royal Bank building, over which the Royal Hotel towered when it was completed in 1908.

The Royal Hotel was built in 1908 for Chilliwack resident D. S. Dundas. In 1912, Dundas sold the Royal to then prominent Vancouverite Cyrus W. McGillivray, for $47,000. McGillivray, in turn, sold to Tom Berry, Buck's father, in 1926, beginning a vibrant period in the hotel's history.

Today's owners of the Royal Hotel seek to recapture and to expand on that lengthy and exciting period of hotel history. Their renovations to the interior and exterior of the Royal Hotel go a long way toward providing their guests and visitors with a Royal experience.

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