Norwood Hotel has been in business for three generations

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This article was published 04/10/2015 (3683 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In June, Sparrow Hotels won a Winnipeg Tourism Award of Distinction in the Large Business of the Year category — the irony of which wasn’t entirely lost on Bob Sparrow, son of Merle Sparrow, founder of Sparrow Hotels’ flagship location — the Norwood Hotel at 112 Marion St.

“We’ve been lucky enough to win a few awards through the years, but when my father opened the Norwood in 1937, it consisted of a men’s-only beer parlour and 28 rooms, so yeah, not exactly a large business,” said Sparrow, who joined his half-brother, Herb, at the ‘Wood in 1969 — nine years after their father retired.

Sparrow Hotels, which is now operated by Sparrow’s son, Ben, counts among its holdings the Norwood Hotel, the Mere Hotel on Waterfront Drive and the Inn at The Forks. The company is also in charge of food services at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, including the Era restaurant, and the Inn at The Forks’s Riverstone Spa.

“My dad passed away in 1976,” said Bob Sparrow, who’s also chairman of Travel Manitoba’s board of directors. “While I don’t think he would be too surprised that we’re still around, he’d probably be a bit surprised by what happened to that little hotel he opened almost 80 years ago.”

 

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Merle Sparrow was born in 1899. He grew up on a farm near Elgin and, after moving to Saskatchewan, managed a Drewry’s brewery in Moose Jaw for a number of years before relocating to Winnipeg in the Great Depression.

He went through “a bit of a tragic life,” his son said. Merle’s first wife died in a dentist’s chair when she was 19, leaving her husband with an infant son, Herb. Merle’s second wife died of cancer. Bob Sparrow’s mother was Merle’s third wife. The couple had two sons, but Bob’s brother, who was seven years older than him, was killed in a car accident.

The original Norwood Hotel opened in the late 1800s at the corner of Marion Street and Tache Avenue. When Prohibition came along in the 1920s, it was converted into a pool hall/apartment block. Sparrow’s father bought the property in 1937 and immediately applied for a liquor licence.

Bob Sparrow, 68, grew up a few blocks from the inn, on Monck Avenue. He has fond memories of visiting his dad on Saturday afternoons to deliver a message from home before going for a haircut at a neighbouring barber shop or taking in whatever matinee was playing at the Plaza Theatre, which was situated on the same block. (Merle purchased the Plaza in the 1950s with an eye toward expanding somewhere down the road. Bob Sparrow and Herb converted the movie hall into a recording studio two decades later before razing it entirely to pave the way for what is now the hotel’s west parking lot.)

‘My dad passed away in 1976… he’d probably be a bit surprised by what happened to that little hotel he opened almost 80 years ago’

“We moved to North Kildonan when I was 14, but I still consider myself a Norwood kid. There weren’t too many back alleys around here that I wasn’t familiar with,” Bob Sparrow said.

The Norwood Hotel has been a pioneer in its field for nearly eight decades. Sparrow said his father’s establishment was one of the first bars in Winnipeg to allow women to drink alongside men. It was the first watering hole to feature live entertainment — organist Agnes Forsythe hosted an immensely popular weekly talent show there for 17 years, beginning in the mid-’50s — and, much later on, it was one of the first hotels in the city to ban smoking in its coffee shop and dining room.

“I never smoked. I never had to,” Sparrow said with a chuckle. “I used to get home at night and my wife would say, ‘My God, Bob, your clothes.’ People were really upset when we decided, ‘That’s it, no more’ — it completely emptied the place for a while — but a few months later, we were full again.”

The Norwood Hotel was also one of the first businesses in the city to cash cheques for customers.

“You may not remember this, but there was a time when the banks used to close at three in the afternoon,” said Sparrow. “Except the (St. Boniface) hospital, which is just a couple of blocks away from us, used to hand out their cheques at 4 (p.m.). So every second Thursday, people would be lined up out the door, waiting to cash their paycheques.”

Sparrow said the code word for the Norwood among hospital employees back then was “library.” While they were attending to patients, nurses would ask one another, “Hey, do you want to go to the library after work?”

“I’m sure the patients must have thought, ‘Wow, these women never stop working,’ ” Sparrow said.

The Norwood expanded to five storeys and 52 rooms in 1989. Even while construction crews were driving piles into the ground, Sparrow was hearing from naysayers who told him, in so many words, ‘Why bother? Who’s going to stay here, anyway?’

“The funny thing is, walking-wise, the distance from here to the (RBC) Convention Centre is the same as from the Fairmont to the convention centre,” said Sparrow, who now lives on Waterfront Drive and sometimes makes the trek to work on foot. “People coming from Toronto don’t think of us as being in the ‘burbs. By cab, downtown is two minutes away.”

Sparrow refrained from name-dropping when asked if anyone famous had spent a night at his locale, saying it would be unprofessional to intrude on the privacy of guests. But he did drop a few hints, mentioning a former Canadian prime minister and an American music legend as two of his most noteworthy callers.

“He tells us we’re ‘his’ place because he’s stayed here a number of times,” Sparrow said of a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member who was born a few years after Sparrow’s father opened the biz. (Sorry, that’s the only clue you’re going to get). “I’m not entirely sure why he picked this place — I’ve never gone up to him and asked — but he always checks in under an assumed name, then sits in the lobby with a baseball cap on while he checks his email. It’s funny, because nobody walking past has a clue it’s him.”

Sparrow said there have been a few occasions through the years when he sat back, doffed his owner’s hat for an hour or two and enjoyed what was taking place around him. The night in 1979 when the Norwood served as the backdrop for a nationally televised CBC special — Burton Cummings: Portage and Main — was one. Another was when the hotel’s Wood Tavern & Grill hosted a wake for Bill (Red River) Merritt, one of the founders of the Winnipeg International Children’s Festival and a rock icon in his own right, thanks to his work with bands such as Mood Jga Jga, Rocki Rolletti and Be Bop Beluga.

“After Bill died, there was a benefit show for him at the convention centre that drew 1,500 people, but the real party was here,” Sparrow said, noting through the years, his stage has also been graced with surprise visits by the likes of John Prine and Steve Goodman.

“The people who showed up and played that night included Gord Osland, Graham Shaw, Tom Jackson, Rick Neufeld, Ray St. Germain… the list just went on and on. I remember thinking at some point, ‘Wow, I can’t believe this is going on in my place.’ “

Sparrow quickly checked himself after uttering the word, “my.”

“I’m not taking any credit — this place isn’t about me,” he said. “My mom worked here, my brother Herb and his wife worked here… so did my brother that was killed, my wife, my nephew, my two sons.

“We are one of the oldest operating family hotels in the country. There are a few out east that have been around as long or longer, but so far, I haven’t come across anybody in Western Canada that’s been in business as long as us.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca