Lake of Bays Heritage Foundation

Memoir

History of Burlmarie

The Bastedo family built a two story hotel in 1910

In the 1870s, Joseph and Mary Bastedo took up two hundred acres of free grant land in McLean Township, just north of Baysville along the shores of the South Muskoka River. Over the next several decades, the Bastedo family acquired more than a thousand acres of land along the western shores of the river north of Baysville and out into the lake. The land passed to their son, Peter Burleigh Bastedo, and his wife Mary, who worked as farmers for several years before they built a two-storey hotel in 1910 along this channel north of Baysville. At first the hotel was named Point Pleasant, but was soon changed to the Burlmarie Hotel (Burl and Mary, converted to Marie, was a combination of both their names). 

After the First World War a third storey was added to the hotel, which Peter operated until after the Second World War when he sold it to a family from Hamilton. For a few years before the hotel was sold, Peter and Mary’s grandchildren spent the summer at Burlmarie, helping with chores and stealing pickles from a big barrel under the kitchen table. After the hotel was sold, the family continued to spend summers at the old Bastedo farmhouse, which is still the family cottage today.

This information was collected in an interview in the summer of 2013 with Elaine Simpson.

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