I just read the story in Pique about how the Gebhart/Hillman house on Nita Lake could be torn down (Pique, Sept. 27, “Whistler council approves plan…”). This follows the unfortunate tradition in Whistler of either burning or tearing down any surviving heritage buildings.
The Gebhart/Hillman house was built by Alf Gebhart sometime in the 1950s when he was the owner of the Rainbow Lumber Company, which had a sawmill where Alta Lake Park is now. The Gebharts abandoned the house, maybe in the early 1960s, and sold it to Charles Hillman, a school teacher in Vancouver. When the Whistler Mountain ski area opened for business in early 1966, the house was found by Bill Rendell and a couple of friends. They kicked out the packrats and moved in. Bill was a draughtsman and he made the “Toad Hall” sign and hung it above the entry stairs. So the Gebhart/Hillman house was the original Toad Hall.
Bill decided in late 1967 to move out and offered the place to Jim Burgess who invited me, Drew Tait, and Mike Wisnicki to move in with him. Various people lived there for three or four years until Hillman kicked everyone out. He renovated the place and used it as a ski cabin. The Toad Hall sign went with the former inhabitants when they moved to the Soo Valley sawmill camp at the north end of Green Lake. It was hung above the stairs to the big house there. This is where the picture of all the naked people was taken with the Toad Hall sign above them on the house.
The photo became a poster, of which several thousand were printed and distributed. This poster has created endless confusion about Toad Hall ever since. Copies of the Toad Hall poster can be seen at the Whistler Museum.
I have read the old Toad Hall building is in rough shape, although it seemed OK when I visited there a few years ago. I had some doubts when I first heard it was to be moved, whether it could be moved. The most substantial part of the house was the basement, which had two-foot-thick masonry walls, while the main house was simple 2x4 construction. But I’ve heard about other old buildings being successfully moved, so the old Toad Hall building probably could be moved.
It is unfortunate when one of the very few surviving buildings in Whistler that pre-date the time of Whistler as a ski area could be demolished.
