By Michael Bennett
Local Journalism Initiative
The Ridgetown Independent
It has been 45 years since the last of the three Rondeau Pavilions hosted live musical entertainment. But thanks to local historians and Rondeau Park residents, the memory of those pavilions will last forever.
The “Era Of Rondeau Pavilions” plaque was unveiled recently in front of a crowd of more than 200 people in the Rondeau Joe’s parking lot, just outside the park gates.
It is the latest of 16 historical plaques that the Chatham-Kent Heritage Network has erected over the last three years.
The plaque depicts the history of the three former dance halls – Bayside Pavilion, Lakeshore Pavilion and Rondeau Pavilion – that in their day drew thousands of people to the park to listen and dance to live entertainment.
Many established stars performed in the pavilions, such as Pat Boone, Guy Lombardo, and Bill Haley and the Comets – as well as up-and-coming stars like Bob Seger, Mitch Ryder, Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent, Lighthouse, April Wine, Blood Sweat and Tears, the Stampeders and MC5.
The pavilions were also a stage for local acts to perform, from the Gardiner Family Band in the original pavilion to the Chateau Gai Orchestra, Woody Herman, Les Thompson, Johnny Downes and many others.
What most baby boomers will remember about the pavilions is the record hops, with Rondeau A-Go-Go DJs Bill Saunders and Paul Dusten spinning the tunes to the packed hall in the mid-1960s.
“Patrons came from Chatham, Windsor, London, Sarnia … and we had many Detroit cottagers here,” said Mark Santavy, who, along with Mark Van Raay, compiled the text for the plaques from their many years of historical documentation on the Rondeau Park area. “Many long-term friendships and relationships developed on the dance floor of the pavilions.
“Numerous couples who became acquainted in that building later married, and we have a few of them here,” Santavy said as he pointed out to the crowd.
Lisa Gilbert, chair of the Chatham-Kent Heritage Network, was among those teens who remember the good old days of the Rondeau Pavilion.
“Everybody here … or many of us here, let’s say of a certain age … remember the one that was right here,” she said, pointing to the site of the third of the three pavilions that used to be near the current Rondeau Joe’s.
“Three generations or more of people – not just from this area, but they came from farther away – had the benefit of having a wonderful dance pavilion to come to in the summertime,” Gilbert said.
“The dance halls were the backbone of the time when Rondeau was alive with music, dance and plenty of people,” Van Raay added. “The dance halls were an integral part of culture during this time.”
The original Bayside Pavilion, which stood at the site of the current park store, was built by Isaac Gardiner, Rondeau Provincial Park’s first superintendent, in 1896.
Van Raay said the Gardiner Family Band was a regular fixture in an era where more local acts performed, the likes of Harold Ronson and his Lion Tamers Orchestra, the Bobby Jacks Band and the Ridgetown Brass Band.
The Bayside Pavilion was the summer place to be until 1939, when it was changed into a picnic pavilion.
The Lakeshore Pavilion replaced the original facility, built by Lee Simpson and his partner Archie McDiarmid, as more than 5,000 people attended the grand opening in 1939.
The Ridgetown Kiwanis Club played a major role in the operations of the Lakeside Pavilion.
This second pavilion was located by the public beach.
“I’m old enough to remember two of them,” said David Colby, president of the Rondeau Cottagers Association, which sponsored the CKHN’s Era of the Rondeau Pavilions plaque. “The Lakeside Pavilion was a beautiful wooden structure, and it had a lunch counter, Saturday dances with orchestras and guest orchestras, and some very famous big band leaders played there, like Guy Lombardo and many, many others,”
Colby said. “When I was a kid, we had movie nights on Wednesdays and Sundays, and it was so much fun.”
Sadly, the Lakeside Pavilion burned to the ground in 1973.
Maurice Smyth, who managed the Rondeau Lakeside Pavilion and also owned and operated the Pyranon Ballroom in Chatham, had visions of an even bigger pavilion.
Smyth was the mastermind of the Rondeau Pavilion as he commissioned the construction of the new facility, which was opened on June 25, 1958, outside the park gates near the current Rondeau Joe’s.
“Record hops were all the craze in the late ’50s, early ’60s, and our two original Rondeau A Go-Go DJs can attest to that,” Santavy said, as he pointed out Saunders and Duston. “Live entertainment started taking over in the late 1960s, and Maurice had a great eye for entertainment.”
Santavy said Smyth employed booking agents Art Wolfenden and Nick Harris, who brought in many up-and-coming American and Canadian acts – the likes of Seger, Ryder, Blood Sweat & Tears, etc. – to play the Rondeau Pavilion.
“This is the pavilion that most people still living today remember,” Gilbert said. “It was immediately popular, not only with local people, but also with many who came from Windsor and Detroit and some even from Toronto. It was not unusual for the line to form before the doors opened, and snake all the way to the park gates.”
Towards the late 1970s, however, Smyth sold the pavilion, and the new owner did not have the same contacts to bring in live entertainment.
The last band believed to play the Rondeau Pavilion was Zon on July 20, 1980.
The Rondeau Pavilion suffered the same fate as the Bayside, as it was lost in a fire later in 1980.
Many of the attendees at the plaque ceremony had ties to the former pavilions, such as Peter and Beth Early, whose grandfather Lee Simpson was co-manager of the Lakeshore Pavilion; Gaye Smyth Janssens and Heather Smyth, daughter and daughter-in-law respectively of Maurice Smyth; former DJ’s Saunders and Duston; local musician Rick Chrysler who played in three different bands (The Why Nots, Tymes Five and Nexus); Dave and Tony Rumble whose family band the Chateau Gai Orchestra were a mainstay at the Lakeside Pavilion; Johnny and Vanessa Mitton, representing the Ridgetown Kiwanis.
“On behalf of our Smyth family, and in particular, my father Maurice, and I would just like to say thank you to Mark Santavy. Mark Van Raay, Lisa and Jim Gilbert for all their hard work and tireless efforts in keeping the memories of Rondeau Park, and in particular the Rondeau Pavilions alive with the unveiling of this beautiful plaque,” Smyth Janssens said “My dad would have been so honoured and proud.”
The idea for the Era of Rondeau Pavilions plaque came from Santavy, Van Raay and Colby when they attended one of the first CKHN plaque unveilings at the Craford Settlement on nearby Rose Beach Line last summer.
“The Rondeau Cottagers Association is proud to have contributed to this,” Colby said. “We are very, very grateful to the plaque initiative and to our wonderful Marks for cataloging this initiative.
