The spirited legacy behind Three Valley Gap, and why it’s worth stopping for

Every year thousands of travellers pass a collection of red rooftops poking out between sheer cliffs along a narrow section of the Trans-Canada Highway just west of Revelstoke.

Three Valley Lake Chateau & Historic Ghost Town is a 200-room hotel that looks like a castle, and while it draws repeat customers from around the world each year, many people continue to drive past it unaware of the treasures it holds.

“Some people don’t know what it is or they keep driving by instead of stopping in, that continues to this day,” co-owner Mike Bell said. “It’s a pretty narrow point on the highway, everyone goes by, everyone sees it. People eventually do stop and are impressed.”

The establishment is much more than a hotel.

It’s an off-grid, self-sufficient tourist attraction decorated with antiques, old buildings, vintage cars and trains. Walking through its interior and exterior is like walking through time with every object having a different origin, age and story.

The establishment is also a living family legacy that began with Mike’s grandfather Gordon Bell, a visionary and entrepreneur.

Gordon and his wife Ethel Bell purchased the land on the shores of Three Valley Lake at the foot of the Monashee Mountains in the 1950s. They opened the first parts of the hotel there in the early 1960s.

“He wanted to be self-sufficient, he wanted to do everything himself, how he wanted it,” Mike said. “Out here, there were no building codes at the time, there was nothing. He had to provide water, power and sewer himself.”

Initially, the motel was powered by a diesel generator, but when that go too expensive, Gordon got creative and built a power plant in 1980 with four kilometres of overhead powerline and 5,000 feet of submarine cable under the lake.

“Our power plant is on a different piece of property seven kilometres away,” Mike said. “We have a pool of water and intake high up to maintain constant pressure and it’s pushed through a turbine attached to a generator to make electricity.

“A company provided the expertise for the small hydro system at the time, but I don’t think it was a common thing to do.”

The establishment is still fed from a spring on the mountain, has no municipal services and no BC Hydro power lines going through.

Over the decades, Gordon kept expanding and adding more rooms.

Meanwhile, he was collecting train cars and automobiles, with many of the relics donated by members of the public.

“In the 60s, a dam was built south of Revelstoke and flooded out a lot of communities,” Mike said. “They just burned the buildings and churches, all sorts of things, and he tried to do his part to preserve things.

“He hated to see things going in the garbage or being crushed for scrap metal.”

When Gordon passed away in 2007, the site went into a family trust where many members share ownership of it, and a few, like Mike, have become experts on the place.

Several family members, including Mike and his two boys, have worked there over the years.

“He wanted to have a business for his family,” Mike said.

Every room in the hotel has a unique view, either of the lake, the trains, an immaculate courtyard or the mountain cliffs where goats can often be spotted. A room called The Cave is made of wall-to-wall rocks, including the spring water fed bath and shower.

Onsite is a Heritage Ghost Town visitors buy tickets for, filled with antiques, old-timey facades, a historic church and a museum collection of antique cars with a vintage gas pump.

“All of the cars run except the Dodge,” Mike said. “My grandfather didn’t like Dodges so that was his joke, that they all run except for the Dodge, which is typical, he’d say.”

An enormous circular building houses train cars positioned around a large circle called a turntable that was once used to turn trains around.

“Every divisional point had a turntable, they say locomotives weren’t very good at backing up,” Mike said. “This one is 85 feet in diameter and still functions.”

One train car in the vast collection is the very same Pierre Trudeau was aboard when he rolled through the region in the 1980s.

“He gave the famous Trudeau salute, that is, he gave some protestors the middle finger and this is the actual car he did it from,” Mike said.

Travellers don’t have to stay the night or purchase a ticket to wander through the ghost town.

Mike said some people stop to take admire the scenery, take pictures or sit on the beach on the lake. There’s also a restaurant onsite and a gift shop to peruse.

A plaque telling the history of Gordon Bell is in the entryway of the main building that has comfy chairs and sometimes a cat sleeping nearby.

“My grandfather was an entrepreneur, and he died knowing his legacy was safe,” Mike said.

Three Valley Lake Chateau & Historic Ghost Town is located at 8903 Trans-Canada Highway 19 kilometres west of Revelstoke. Go here for more information.