Talisman Motor Inn / The Beachcomber Room, Ottawa, Ontario

Talisman Motor Inn & The Beachcomber Room, Ottawa, Ontario 1376 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario

Name: Talisman Motor Inn

Type: Hotel

Street: 1376 Carling Avenue

City: Ottawa

State: Ontario

Zip:

country: Canada

Phone:

Status: Permanently Closed (demolished)

Description: Opened in 1963 the Talisman Motor Inn with multiple restaurants for fine dining and entertainment

Developer / designer William (Bill) Teron:

Best known in the Ottawa area for creation of housing communities in the suburbs of Ottawa, Teron Construction also built several downtown Ottawa buildings. Teron also had a hand in the original Toronto waterfront. The plan for the Talisman Motor Hotel was imagined after a trip to Japan with a vision of a Japanese steak house, garden, and overall design for business, modern banquet facilities, weddings etc. The hotel had their main dining room “Raffles” and their own tiki bar “The Beachcomber Room”. Within a few years The Beachcomber Room was relocated to the lower level and the original space was used for meeting rooms. The new “Beachcomber Lounge” did very well as a live music venue from April 1976 until it closed in 1991. The Japanese steak house became a popular tropical plant and hanging fern bar called “The Greenery Room”, or just “The Greenery” until it too became a vacant room.

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The Beachcomber Room: Interior design by Mary Orenstein of Toronto in a “Tahitian Style” featuring statues of Polynesian Warriors, a war canoe over the bar and South Pacific weapons. The band rested on “tons” of lava rock imported from California. It also included a 90ft. Polynesian mural

Beachcomber Mural Painting - Alexander Von Svodoba: Austrian painter and mosaic artist Alexander Von Svodoba was commissioned to create ninety-foot mural in “rich tropical colours depicting a South Seas theme”. The mural was apparently removed and most of it destroyed when the Beachcomber was relocated. For those in Toronto, his mosaic work can be seen at the Connaught Medical Bldg., for those in Portland the Perpetuity sculpture currently at the World Forestry Center. See link below: http://www.healthheritageresearch.com/alexvonsvoboda/Connaught/AvS-SPCmosaic.html

Beachcomber circa 1985. After confirming with Robert Van Oosting of Oceanic Arts, the Tapa is from the Vatulele area of Fiji and the carved posts are #153 and carved in either Alderwood or Redwood. The palmwood tikis in the pics above were not carved or supplied by OA

Garden Design: David H. Engel, an American landscape architect is credited with the Japanese-inspired design concept for the Talisman Motor Inn courtyard. In the 1950s, Engel studied in Japan under master landscape architect Tansai (Taichiro) Sano of Kyoto. Engel is best known through his numerous publications, rather than his landscape work, although he has designed several hotel gardens, contemporary and Japanese-inspired, notably Engel’s restoration of the 19th century Japanese garden, Kykuit, at the Rockefeller estate in Tarrytown, New York.

Photo of David Engel (with Canadian high school student, N. Fudemoto) at the newly opened Talisman in the Ottawa Citizen on 27 June 1963 in article, ‘Man needs to be close to nature says U.S. landscape architect’.

Post cards

Brochure

Original artwork for 1979-1980 advertising campaign 25” x 17”

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