Gander’s airport lounge receives heritage designation after being ‘endangered’

Garrett Barry has more on a protected piece of Canadian history as he gets an inside look at the newly restored Gander International Lounge.

GANDER - Gander’s international airport lounge has received provincial heritage designation, marking a key chapter in the revival of the iconic structure once considered endangered.

The airport lounge — opened by Queen Elizabeth II in June 1959 — is a shining example of modernist architecture and design. Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador wrote in its designation that the room is one of the “most complete and authentic mid-century modern public spaces in Canada.”

“It really is a time capsule, in many regards,” said Stephanie Power, chair of the new International Lounge Foundation which advocates and plans for the lounge’s future.

“It was meant to really showcase Canada as a bold, young, modern country.”

A massive mural — Kenneth Lochhead’s “Flight and its Allegories” — spans almost the entire width of the lounge space and has greeted visitors for decades as they wandered through the airport.

Gander’s geography made it a major refueling stop for trans-Atlantic flights throughout much of the 20th century. The small town and airport saw hundreds of thousands of airline passengers each year.

“If you speak to people who were teenagers during that time or young children, they’ll talk to you about coming up to the airport to get an ice cream, or just to sit and watch the people,” said Power.

There were plenty of celebrity encounters too. Gander community legend maintains that Frank Sinatra was once scolded for trying to cut in line at the airport bar.

Power said when she was young, her neighbour Doug Sheppard would tell stories of giving Sinatra a ride to the town’s Eaton Centre, not knowing exactly who the man was.

But as longer-range jets became more common — and refuelling stops dwindled —passenger numbers at Gander airport plummeted.

That decline left the lounge largely unused, save for emergency diversions and detached from the lives of Gander residents.

By 2014, Gander airport staff began looking at alternatives to their terminal building, as they struggled with heat bills that approached a million dollars a year.

News that the airport may be replaced, sparked an outcry among Gander residents and history lovers — one that eventually caught the eye of politicians and helped bring about $2 million of federal money into a renovation project.

“To be clear, we weren’t talking about destroying the international lounge,” said Airport CEO Reg Wright, who contends the public backlash and commentary misconstrued his organization’s intentions.

The National Trust for Canada included the airport in its 2014 list of the top ten endangered places in the country.

But since that renovation and re-opening, Wright said the lounge is fulfilling it’s intended purpose: it’s once again become a community space for people to meet.

“I’m constantly amazed with the kind of things that end up here,” he said. “Concerts to weddings to fitness classes.”

The airport’s Mad Men-esque appeal, has received new attention in recent years since Broadway musical “Come From Away” memorialized the actions of Gander residents in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attack.

Dozens of planes were grounded in Gander, in the immediate aftermath of the morning’s attacks, leaving about 7,000 people stranded in the town.

Residents like Diane Davis — who was a school teacher at the time — quickly organized to help.

“It’s not that we did extraordinary things,” she said. “It’s that so many thousands of people did the small things they could do to help.”

“I say 7,000 people almost came through that door. And being in this space resonates.”