Arden Park Hotel celebrates 25 years

A staple of the community – and one of Stratford’s signature hotels – celebrates its 25th anniversary this week.

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The longevity of the Arden Park Hotel – founded by Vic and Joanne Hayter on the site of the former Kroehler factory in October 1999 – is a testament to the hard work that Vic put into the business, his son and one of the hotel’s current owners, Greg Hayter, said.

“With any business, you open it up and you don’t know whether it’s going to last three months or three years or 30 years,” Greg Hayter said.

“From a business aspect, you know, my father knew what he was doing. He had a lot of thought put into his projects; they weren’t done on a whim. He gave it enough thought to know that it was going to be a success. . . . Not only did we survive the first 25 days, we survived the first 25 months. Now here we are, we’re surviving the first 25 years.”

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The Hayters bought the vacant property in 1998 after selling the Festival Inn, which they had previously owned. Dan Mathieson, who was Stratford’s deputy mayor at the time, helped encourage the Hayters to take the leap.

“The Hayter family had a deep history in Stratford’s accommodation sector. . . . When they sold the Festival Inn, there was still a need for more accommodation in the city, and I encouraged Vic at the time to consider acquiring the site,” Mathieson said.

Since it first opened, the Arden Park Hotel has become a meeting place for Stratford residents and those outside of the community, Greg Hayter said.

“People put here on their way to somewhere. There’d be one person from Goderich and one person from Kitchener, and they would meet in Stratford to get together for lunch or whatever. It became just kind of a hub in the city for local people, whether they were eating, whether they’d have relatives staying over, whether they’d be having a wedding,” he added.

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The hotel, which originally opened with 82 rooms and banquet space for 150, has gone through several changes since its founding. Two years after opening, the Hayters added 32 rooms and, in 2003, a west wing consisting of three floors of rooms and three high-end suites were built. The hotel now has banquet space for 500 people.

While the hotel became part of the Best Western chain in 2015, which posed a few challenges with maintaining its local character, the Hayters’ long history in Stratford gave the Arden Park an advantage, Greg Hayter said.

“My father was born and raised in Stratford, moved away for 20 some years, and then moved back because this is where his heart was. The local flavor that we have throughout the community with Arden Park is due to him,” he said.

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The hotel has received a lot of community support over the years from both legions of loyal customers and its longtime employees, some of whom have been at the Arden Park since day one, Greg Hayter said.

“No matter where I go in Stratford, I seem to always run into either a very dedicated customer or a former employee,” he said.

The Arden Park has also become a place where some of the biggest events in the city have happened, Mathieson said, pointing to the annual mayor’s breakfasts that he started with Vic Hayter that continues today with his successor, Martin Ritsma.

“There’s been many great events celebrations there, and a lot of memorials for people, so it’s had some of the greatest events and some of the saddest events, but it’s always been a place where the community has gathered,” Mathieson said.

While he reflected on the past 25 years, Greg Hayter said he’s unsure of what exactly will happen in the next 25. Although it may not carry on in the Hayter family, the Arden Park Hotel will still be around, he said.

“I anticipated not myself being here, and probably not a lot of the (same) staff being here, but I anticipated that this will still be a valid, viable business,” he said.

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