By WAYNE GIBSON

A drive along Lakeshore Blvd. W., from Parklawn Rd. to the Humber River is famous for the many high-rise glass condos that mark the route.
But 60-years-ago a ‘shorter-term’ style of accommodation occupied this small lakefront strip; the classic drive-in motels of the 1950s and ‘60s. Many had water-related names like The Cruise, The Beach and The Seahorse given that they were located on Lake Ontario.
For the most part they appealed to tourists, with a big draw being the CNE. As with motels everywhere, rooms were also sometimes rented hourly to couples interested in secret rendezvous.
For Alex and Annie Pelech, a couple who fled war-ravaged Eastern Europe for Toronto, a vacant lot beside an old house represented an ideal location for them to build a business and raise their sons, Walter and Joe.
Walter Pelech, now a retired dentist, who lives at Harbourfront, recalls the determination of his hard-working parents to construct two motels and run them as businesses.
His dad named them the Toronto Motel, and the Transcanada Motel: according to Walter,
his father wanted to use “recognizable Canadian names” as a tribute to the city and country that took the family in, and which gave him the opportunity to start a business.
The Toronto Motel was first, completed in the early-50’s: it was up and running as the
Transcanada was still being built. Tragically just as the Transcanada was completed in
1955, Alex passed away after suffering a heart attack.
Annie was now left alone to raise her two young sons and run two motels: realizing this
impossible load, she sold the Trans Canada to the Seahorse next door.
Hard-work and long hours were now the order of the day as Annie and her sons ran the Toronto Motel while living in a house on the property.
Walter recalls his mother’s dedication to keeping the business afloat: unable to contract-out any of the cleaning or laundry. Annie did most of the work herself.
Walter and Joe would shovel snow from the large lot and paint both inside and exterior of the motel on a regular basis. The Toronto Motel was sold in 1972 as Annie could not afford a new roof.
As you pass by those gleaming new condos, give a thought to this once vibrant, colourful motel strip and the many entrepreneurs who built it.