The Mount Peyton Hotel is Grand Falls-Windsor’s largest hotel. It was built in 1962, and it had its grand opening in January of 1963. It expanded when it took over the Simwestco Hotel and Motel that was located across the street. It is located just off the Trans-Canada Highway and Lincoln Road intersection. It has 150 rooms. There are 102 hotel rooms, 32 motel rooms and 16 efficiency rooms. It has a steak house called the Peyton Corral Steakhouse, dining room, an English pub-style eatery called the Crown and Moose Pub, and a lot of meeting rooms. Some of the meeting rooms have names on them such as: Beothuk Room, Exploits Room, and Newfoundland Room.
Some people believe that the Mount Peyton is called after Mount Peyton, which is a mountain located in the back of Grand Falls-Windsor. In one of the meeting rooms upstairs there is even a wall painting of Mount Peyton. However, the first owner of the hotel, Temple Baird, named the hotel Peyton after his great grandfather, John Peyton Jr., who was responsible for capturing the Beothuk, Demasduit (or Mary March as she was known to her English captors), on March 5, 1819. Our class always calls her Demasduit because that was her real name.
The steakhouse was not always a steakhouse. It used to be a swimming pool area. The dining room is called Clem’s Dining Room. It is named after Clem Ryan who was the matre'd there for many years. Clem Ryan’s grandson, Terry Ryan, used to play hockey with the Montreal Canadians. The Mount Peyton has had a lot of famous people stay there as guests such as: Bryan Adams, Gordon Pinsent, Alana Myles, Waylon Jennings, and Ernie Coombs (Mr. Dressup).
The Mount Peyton is now owned and operated by Fortis Properties, who has a chain of hotels across Canada. There are about 70 people working at the Mount Peyton. They cater to many different events like weddings, Salmon Festival dinners, special meetings and news conferences. Two years ago our music teacher, Mrs. Courtney, went there with the grade three school choir to perform for a School Councils Convention that was being held there. They did a great job! Also, the Mount Peyton allows pets, and highspeed internet is available. In the rooms they have Cable TV with on-command movie system. I enjoy going to the Mount Peyton to eat because they have the best dinner rolls ever.
Emily Goodland (2004-2005)