Summer is Here! Let’s keep cool.

We have entered the long, hot days of summer and we have never been more grateful for our air conditioning! While it’s nice to go out and enjoy all the exciting events offered in the city this season, it is great to be able to come back to a cool house. Between the central air, the de-humidifiers and fans, we do our best to keep the heat outside, and provide a comfortable temperature for guests.

Summer Fun

There are a number of great things going on in Hamilton this summer. Three of the many exciting events are Festival of Friends, Pride Hamilton and the Dundas Cactus Festival! In particular, Festival of Friends is celebrating their fiftieth anniversary of bringing music and joy to Hamilton’s Gage Park. The festival is a celebration of art, music, food and culture and has boasted some huge names over its history. This month’s Hamilton City Magazine has a great story.

Gage Park is located in the east end of the city, just less than 4km away. You can get there by foot in about an hour, or bike, bus or drive. The park is a treat to visit at any time, especially the greenhouses. But a wonderful event like Festival of Friends is a great opportunity to get out and see it.

Making a Splash

As well as organized events, the city offers plenty of opportunities to stay cool. Right across the road from us in Beasley Park, you’ll find one of the many great splash pads in the area. If you want to travel down to Pier 4 Park, there’s a fantastic splash pad, as well as a nice, shady walking path along the lakeshore. There are also numerous swimming pools, both indoors and outdoors!

Summer is here! If you want to go downtown and grab an ice-cream cone, let us know if you want a recommendation!

I often refer to myself as a one-man-band. It’s mostly a joke, of course. But we run a very small business here, without any employees. Of course, we can’t really do it all ourselves, and we do rely on others to keep the Pring running smoothly. 

In-Real-Life Partners

Once a week, we get a much needed assist from the crew at Carrie Cleans Up. They’re a local small business and they specialize in giving the place a deep clean. When you clean a place every day, it’s easy to miss things. A fresh set of eyes – many sets, indeed! – catch what we don’t notice and ensure that the hostel is always sparkling clean. 

Besides sub-contractors, in a very real sense, our neighbours are also our partners. We live upstairs, so our neighbours are our friends and we see them every day. It’s not too uncommon, unfortunately, for guest reviews to comment on the neighbourhood being a bit rough. We would love to contradict that, since we love living here, but there’s no denying that things can seem depressed, to an outside observer. Therefore, it’s always valuable to have eyes everywhere. We know our neighbours are keeping watch over us, and we’re keeping an eye out for them. We’re making sure that everyone is safe and comfortable.

Online Partners

We’ve talked before about how dealing with Online Travel Agents can be a trial. Fortunately, there are also online partners who do more than just take a commission! We try to keep a wary eye on the huge tech oligarchs, who are so unavoidable in the modern world. It’s virtually impossible to do business without them, though. 

We’re partnering with smaller groups, as well. One such is NAHA, the North American Hostel Association. Last month, in Montreal, it was a real pleasure to talk to other people who work in the same industry. As a group, we’re able to get more data to help us all succeed, and share knowledge, and recommend guests!

Through NAHA, we met the good people from FreeGuides, and we’re looking forward to working with them. They provide an online portal where our guests can find information about the hostel and the city. 

Perhaps our busiest partner, however, is Cloudbeds. They’re our property management software company. If you make a reservation on our website, you’ll be connected to the Cloudbeds booking engine – and being moved to a different page can be disconcerting to some people making a reservation. But don’t worry! We’ve been with Cloudbeds since 2017 and they have the tech savvy to help us make your reservation run smoothly. Left to ourselves, we would probably still be making reservations in a date book. 

Unintentional Partners

One last note: we don’t have a cat! They think they’re part of the team, but they are not. If the neighbours’ (lovely, friendly) cats try to come in, please don’t let them. 

Have you seen how high gas prices are right now? Of course you have. Wow. Between that and cancelled flights, travel trends plummeted across North America in April.

At first, we thought it was just us. But after talking to hosteliers across the continent, we have found that our woes are everywhere. Phew! We’re glad we didn’t do anything to upset our guests. But whatever the reason, it’s no good to be lonely, and we want to see you all again!

Do You Like Budget Travel?

Backpacking, or hostel travel, is always a good choice for people who want to get away from their own four walls. It’s especially good if you want an affordable getaway. While “luxury” hostels and glamping have increased in popularity in the last few decades – and are great options – the backbone of the hostel industry is to keep it simple.

At the Pring, we are really happy to say that we don’t upsell, or try to push additional costs onto our guests. We don’t charge for towels or locks or parking. We don’t even charge for laundry! It’s more important to us that you save your money for the fun and adventures you want to have in Hamilton.

At present, our budgets are being squeezed by the increased cost of necessities. If it’s a stretch to put gas in the car or fill the fridge, a vacation can seem like an absurd luxury.

Good News!

I had the opportunity to travel to Montreal last week. It was a work trip, but I was able to take some time to see the sights of the city. It’s such a beautiful place! And traveling out-of-province with Via Rail was easy to arrange and comparatively affordable, too.

A few days in a different place can do wonders to recharge the batteries, especially with life so stressful. I found that the completely free parts of my getaway were the best. I loved walking around, admiring the famous sights, and discovering hidden beauty. Hamilton is much smaller than Montreal, but it is similar in that way: you can just wander around and find a thousand beautiful sights and secret wonders.

So, if a flight to somewhere exotic is off the cards this year, and you still need a short escape, we can heartily recommend a staycation. If you’re in Ontario, Quebec, or even Manitoba or the Maritimes, Hamilton is not far away. A new place is just the recharge you need.

On September 1st, 1987, the Mayor of Hamilton, Bob Morrow, signed bylaw 87-246. This bylaw designated the William Pring House as a “property of historic and architectural value and interest.” The owner at the time and the Ontario Heritage Foundation were informed, and the designation was announced in the newspaper.

Congratulations, the house has a heritage designation! But what does that mean?

What is a Designation?

Professional historians and architects agreed that this house was of sufficient historical and architectural importance that it should be protected. When a property is so designated, it means that the owner is not permitted to change – and must protect – certain features, within specific parameters. Unfortunately, this protection is often sorely needed. The property listed immediately before ours in Hamilton’s directory of heritage properties, is the Century Theatre at 14 Mary Street. It was demolished in 2010 after years of neglect.

Designations do not necessarily include the whole property, and owners can often apply for permits for permission for changes. They can even unlock funding to help with restorations and repairs, if they are very lucky! A heritage designation doesn’t mean that you’re not allowed to do anything. Nor does it mean that the government will pay for everything! The owner is still pretty much on the same footing as any other property owner. There are just a few extra steps.

Historical Significance

While many important things undoubtably happened here over the course of the last 171 years, they were mostly of a personal nature, for the families who lived here. When a heritage designation is made on the basis of historical significance, it’s usually because someone famous or historically important lived there, stayed there, or did something amazing there.

Our historical significance is not huge. William Pring himself only lived here for four years, and the family sold the house in 1871. For the next several decades, the house was rented out and none of the tenants were particularly famous. The majority of the historical aspect of our designation rests on a former resident. He is recorded in the designation as Beamer W Hopkins.

Beamer’s legal first name was William, but he was known by his middle name. His father, William, owned the house from 1908 until his death in 1933 and Beamer grew up here. Beamer “had a particularly distinguished career as a politician, judge and public servant, serving at various times as alderman, controller, vice-president of the Parks Board, police commissioner and city magistrate.”

Architectural Significance

The house is on firmer footing with the architectural designation. It really is a spectacular house and we are so lucky to be its custodians. While it is not alone in Hamilton, which has many examples of beautiful 19th century stone buildings, it is on its own in this part of the city. Most of Hamilton’s “stone age” beauties are in the south west of the city, whereas we are to the north east of downtown. Most of the houses around us are brick, some clapboard, but very few are stone and there are none of this magnitude.

The limestone itself is part of the heritage designation, especially the “dressed stone front” and “coursed stone end wall.” Most particularly noted on the exterior is the “distinctive Renaissance Revival entrance, which comprises a wide doorway flanked by stone columns supporting a semi-circular voussoir and traceried fanlight.” The door and front porch, which date to the early 20th century, are specifically excluded from the designation.

Inside, there are unfortunately few original features still extant. But the features that remain are listed in the designation: “an elegantly proportioned spiral wooden staircase and the two rounded corners of the dining room with their curved panelled doors.” While the doors are mentioned, they are not specifically protected, while the staircase is.