January 2026
Before Highway 400 opened between Toronto and Barrie on 1 July 1952, as the first controlled-access highway in Ontario, motorists traveling to cottage country in Northern Simcoe County and the Muskoka District endured slow and arduous process along the King’s Highway 11. Snaking its way through the towns and villages, the route was often plagued by stop-and-go traffic, making the trip that today would be around one to three hours today, an annoyingly long excursion.
This and the fact that unlike today’s cars, vehicles of the past were less efficient and drivers were required to stop more frequently for gas and oil. As a result, numerous motels opened along the route, giving weary travelers a chance to grab a meal or spend the night, allowing them to breakup the trip over a couple of days. One of the motels in the then-Town of Barrie was Lake Simcoe Motel along Blake Street/Highway 11.
Lake Simcoe Motel had humble beginnings as Smith Cabins, established in the early 1920s by Simcoe County Deputy Sheriff Benjamin Walker Smith, son of Simcoe County’s first sheriff, B.W. Smith. Smith allowed people to stay overnight on his property overlooking Blake Street. Originally, guests would simply pitch a tent on Smith’s property. Later, the Barrie Kiwanis Club built washrooms opposite Smith’s property on the original site of Barrie Collegiate on the north-west corner of Blake Street and Rodney Street. The washrooms were moved to the Smith property after a neighbour complained.
Several picnic pavilions and a refreshment stand built on Smith’s lot, but not long afterwards, the picnic pavilions were converted to cabins for overnight guests, replacing the previous tent accommodations.
Unfortunately, Smith wouldn’t live to see the great success his his front-lawn campsite would become, as he died of a heart attack in 1935.
When Smith’s son Lloyd returned to Canada after serving in the RCAF during World War II, he and his English war bride wife Iris took over running the business, which would later become the Lake Simcoe Motel.
Smith’s Cabins weren’t the only accommodations along Blake Street, with the Homestead Inn at 81 Blake Street and Lakeside Cabins at 89 Blake Street, both just to the west of Smith’s property.
The Smith family sold their motel in 1972, but it remained a fixture on Blake Street, even as other motels across Barrie closed. Highway 400 took away a huge chunk of drive-by business for all the motels in Barrie, as motorists could quickly and easily by-pass the city. Many of the old motels survived by catering more and more to those seeking long-term rental accommodations, than one or two night stays.
The end for the Lake Simcoe Motel came in 2010, a victim of the changing times. After several years sitting vacant, a portion of the motel was destroyed by two arson fires a week apart in August 2016. By the end of the year, the rest of the abandoned motel was demolished.
The former Smith residence at 47 Rodney Street is still standing today.
Sources: THEN AND NOW: Sheriff’s lawn became ‘landmark’ Lake Simcoe Motel – Barrie News, THEN & NOW: St. Vincent Park – Barrie News, Lakeside Cabins on Blake Street. – Barrie Historical Archive, Lake Simcoe Motel catches fire, Barrie’s Lake Simcoe Motel is history – Barrie News.
