Shaw's Hotel is a seaside hotel 600 meters from the beach and the longest dune system in the western hemisphere. With its own beach access and its own bay for water sports, the hotel is secluded and relatively private, being more than a mile from any other accomodation.
The Shaw family came to the site of the hotel in 1790 and have farmed the land around it ever since. The hotel began as a farm house, built in 1860, which started taking in paying guests. Over the years it has been enlarged and modernized several times, while twenty seven cottages have been constructed, as well.
The
oldest family operated inn in Canada, it is today operated by the fourth generation of Shaw hoteliers. In the past 155 years the inn has accepted thousands of pleased guests, including Premiers and Prime Ministers. Decreed a Canadian National Historic Site in 2004, text from the CNHS plaque is below.
Since 1860, when the Shaw family began accepting paying guests in their home, this hotel has occupied a prominent place in Prince Edward Island's tourism industry. Over the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the original farmhouse was enlarged and cottages added, reflecting the evolution of vacation hotel facilities on the Island. Beach holidays became increasingly popular during this period, as tourism boomed worldwide and recreational opportunities expanded across Canada. Continuously operated as a family-run hotel, Shaw's is a rare, early illustration of a significant era in the history of tourism in Canada.
The Waterloo Region Record, on October 03, 2010 published in its travel section an article on the venerable old hotel, and the family who runs it. The article is reproduced in part below.
Travel: P.E.I. hotel says it’s Canada’s
oldest family-operated inn
Oct 03, 2010
Waterloo Region Record
BRACKLEY BEACH, P.E.I. — A batch of boisterous boys bursts across the lawn at Shaw’s Hotel in Brackley Beach intent on some old-fashioned fun.
With toy guns ablazing with imaginary fire, they dart to and fro, hiding behind cottages, hay bales and any other inanimate object for their animated game.
“I surrender. I surrender!” six-year-old Felix Valiquette of Ottawa, Ont., shouts in mock defeat, his hands thrown high in the air and the group races off for the next phase of this afternoon play operation.
Surrendering to Shaw’s Hotel’s serene, laid-back style has been a vacationing way of life of Felix’s family for three generations. Their annual summer migration to Prince Edward Island began years ago, but in the past dozen years, his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins have merged en masse at Shaw’s for some prime family time.
They’re not alone. In fact, this multi-generational repeat visitors’ trend is quite common. But then again, it’s the same generational lineage mirrored by the Shaws themselves who have operated this country inn in their friendly family manner for 150 years.
Designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2005, Shaw’s Hotel lays claim to being Canada’s oldest family-operated inn and one of P.E.I.’s longest running, continuously operated family-owned businesses.
“A number of years ago we were recognized as one of three (P.E.I.) businesses that predated Confederation ... ,” says Rob Shaw, who is the Shaw at the hotel’s helm in the here and now.
Read on at the Waterloo Region Record