The Mansion of Tatla Lake

In the late 1920’s a beautiful building, much more elaborate than most in the Chilcotin, was built by Bob Graham for his wife Margaret. Chelsea and I often wondered how the Graham Inn originated. And what history lay behind it. We interviewed Anne Porter, Joy Graham, Lee Butler, Gail McIntyre, Gerry Bracewell, Harry Hayes and Hugh Macdonald. Through our research we discovered many interesting facts and stories about the “Big House” and the Graham family, and we proudly share that with you.

Bob and Alex Graham, two brothers from Ireland, came to the Chilcotin in the late 1800’s. Alex Graham settled in Alexis Creek, while Bob traveled further west to take up land in Tatla Lake. Later, Bob met Margaret Rey from Scotland, who had recently been widowed. She was out visiting her brother Jim Robertson in Nemiah Valley. After a brief courtship, they were married and Margaret joined Bob on his ranch in Tatla Lake. Together they had three children, Betty in 1910, Bill in 1915 and Alex in 1920. Before Betty was born. Margaret had a daughter Alexina born in Scotland.

“Margaret had a vision of a house,” remembers Anne Porter, granddaughter of Bob and Margaret. Around 1930, with some help from local workers, they built the Graham ranch house with the intention of it being a stopping house. “Ever since I can remember, Mrs. Graham was putting up guests,” recalls Joy Graham. “She didn’t call it an inn or anything, just a stopping house. “The “Big House,” as it was known to the Graham family, was completed in 1932. They had to start from scratch,” says Anne. “It was during the Depression and there were lots of travelers.” During this time many of the people stayed at Tatla and worked for the Grahams to build Margaret’s vision of a perfect house. A steam engine was brought in and was used to power a sawmill to cut lumber for the building.

“Originally there were six bedrooms upstairs and no bathrooms,” recalls Anne. “When it was redone in 1969, we added one bathroom, but all the rooms had plumbing in them, sinks and stuff.” Upstairs, room number two, used to be a walk-in closet. Downstairs by the bathroom was the master bedroom. Each bed in the house had a handmade quilt sewn by Margaret, and stuffed with wool from her home grown sheep.

When you walked into the Graham Inn, there was a long counter with stools around it. There was one dining room for special guests on the left, and one dining room on the right for the family, ranch workers, and friends who came to visit. Lee Butler remembers the Graham Inn as the nicest house in the country.” He ate in the right dining room as a local guest. “We were invited in for lunch and that was quite a thing.” He recalls the old oak tables, linoleum flooring, and the real silverware cutlery used to eat off the delicate china plates. It was the only house in Tatla with electric lights run by one of the first light-plants in the Chilcotin. The house also had running water.

To Gail McIntyre, who worked in the Inn in the 1970’s, it was like a mansion. “When you walk around in that building, when you look at all the closets upstairs, they are all cedar, all hardwood floors. It’s all brass fixtures on the doorknobs,” she notes.

“They called all the rooms in the Graham Inn by the flowers painted on the walls, in the corners,” remembers Anne. “Betty (Graham) said they had never been repainted since 1930, when the original artist had done them. Then Willy Krause came in and redid them in 1969. My grandmother kept the place immaculate.”

Firewood hauled in for the wood stoves was brought in through a low window in the basement where it was stored. Gerry Bracewell explained that a “dumb waiter” brought wood from the basement up to the kitchen.

Alex Graham married Illa Holte in 1944 and their only child, Roy Graham, was born in 1945. Later Alex married Eleanor Butler (Elora Alden), and together they had two children, Audrey King and Len Openshaw. Fred Linden and Betty Graham were married and after Fred died, Betty married Hugh Macdonald. That would have been about 1971 or 1972 remembers Anne. “Then, of course, my dad Bill Graham married my mother Joy Dickinson.”

Lee Butler and his family usually only came to Tatla for the mail because of the long journey on horses from Bluff Lake. However, he remembers a dance he went to the Graham Inn one fall. “It was to honour someone who had gotten married. It was on their verandah.”

Fifty-four years ago Gerry Bracewell, a resident of Tatlayoko Lake, gave birth to her son Marty in the Graham Inn. “It was in the dead of winter. Eighteen inches of snow and it took us all day to get to the Grahams. We played out one of our team of horses and had to borrow a horse from Cappy Lloyd, a neighbor half way to Tatla Lake.” Marty had to have his leg broken to be born, which created problems for both Gerry and Marty. The doctors had to keep Marty’s leg in a splint for two weeks. Gerry says that Betty Graham was the nurse who straightened and splinted Marty’s leg for fourteen days straight.

Harry Haynes had an experience to tell about the Grahams. “One time I went out to the Grahams in winter with a team of horses and a sled full of hay. I put the team in the corral so nothing could get at them. I turned them loose with their harnesses on, so they could eat the hay out of the sled. I went over to the store and did all the shopping, then went back to get the horses out of the big yard. There was a stud horse in there and the stud was trying to jump the mare and he got all tangled up in the harness. He ripped it all to pieces. Well, I went into the Grahams’   house for dinner. At dinner time I said, “Who turned my horses out of the corral?” And old Bob said, “I did.” I said the stud broke my harness all to pieces, but he said that doesn’t much matter. Then I said, “Gee, I saw a brand new harness in the barn. I’ll help myself to all the parts and I’ll have a good harness to go home with. Nobody said a word.”

The Grahams were well known for their hospitality. A truck driver once told Gail McIntyre that the back door to the kitchen was always open and the coffee pot always on. “If there was nobody in the building, and you needed a place to sleep, you would go upstairs and any room with the door open was a free room. And you could just make something to eat if there was nobody to cook it for you.

After Fred Linder passed away, a few people experienced ghostly encounters in the Graham Inn. “Every evening round 7:30, in the room up above me, it sounded like someone was walking across the floor,” remembers Gail McIntyre. “Lots of times there was nobody even up there.” During this time, Gail was working and boarding at the café. “The most intense encounter that I had was in the basement. It was not an unfriendly type of situation, I just knew that somebody else was there.” It was only until other people started telling Gail about their encounters, that she started to believe. It never made me feel afraid. It wasn’t a bad encounter; I just knew I wasn’t alone.”

Bob Graham passed away in the Graham Inn around 1953, leaving Margaret to run the ranch house with her kids. Fred Linder died in the café, where the ice cream freezer is located today. There used to be an old crank telephone on the wall in the corner. He had a heart attack and was trying to phone Betty who was working in the old General Store. In 1958 Betty was left to manage the Graham Inn when Margaret also died in the Graham Inn. Alex Graham died in 1973, but not in the Inn.

After leasing the café for a few years to different people, the Graham family finally sold the Inn to Bruno Krawzik, who was a good cook from Vancouver. Bruno has been running it as a café and hotel for the last fifteen years.

Though the Grahams have long since departed from the Inn and Tatla Lake Ranch, a memento to the memory of that pioneer family is kept alive each year. Lilac trees planted by Margaret bloom every spring, as a fitting reminder of the stout Scottish lady who had a vision of a Chilcotin mansion.

In 2001, Bruno sold the Inn to the Jensen family, David and Leona, from Courtenay. The Jensens did some major “clean ups” in the restaurant to make it the charming restaurant it is today. Upstairs, they turned the six bedrooms into living quarters for themselves and, in so doing, they discovered under the old carpets and linoleum the original hardwood floors which they cleaned and waxed back to their original beauty. Also, the three cabins along the far side of the Inn are available for guests

In June 2005, with much help from David and Leona, the Graham Inn was purchased by Bobbie and Don Bonneteau from Vancouver Island. Having lived their entire lives on Vancouver Island (Port Alberni and Comox Valley), the Bonneteaus were ready for a change. They were tired of trucking and never being home, so they decided, ”Why not the Chilcotin?”

As they pulled into the parking lot at Tatla Lake in the winter of 2004, Bobbie remembers thinking to herself, ”Not in a million years would I live here!” But after meeting the locals and talking to them in the restaurant, which came very easy for her, she started to change her mind. One customer, Bud Mclean, really stood out. Bud shared his stories of the times traveling home from Williams Lake in late 50‘s. Sometimes his family and friends knew what he had been up to in town before he even arrived home, by way of the ”moccasin telegraph.” Bud is a genuine cowboy, as well as a gentleman - polite as can be.

Bobbie and Don did so much to spruce up the Graham Inn, adding the surrounding red fence and the beautiful flowers that bloom from spring until late in the fall.

In July 2008 Don & Bobbie sold the Graham Inn to another couple who had decided to shed the shackles of urban living. Darryl Yeatman and Nancy Bennett.

Darryl and Nancy left Calgary behind and are currently enjoying the very different lifestyle here at the Graham Inn in the heart of the Chilcotin.