The Hidden History of a Calgary LGBTQ2+ Landmark
Arthur Bishop Residence
Calgary Pride is August 27 – September 6
Tucked away in the historic community of Crescent Heights sits a stately two-and-a-half storey residence on a large corner lot. The house is “traditionally historic” – you know it has a story when you walk by it. This is the Arthur Bishop Residence, built in 1912 for Arthur Herbert Bishop, a carpenter, in what was then the hub of Crescent Heights. The house hearkens back to the founding and early development of Crescent Heights, one Calgary’s earliest residential suburbs, during Calgary’s first substantial population boom from 1907-1913.
Today, the Arthur Bishop Residence retains its stately architectural grandeur – clad in a distinctive blue lap wood siding, it is further distinguished by its steep side gabled roof and the now-enclosed verandah (a classic Calgary feature) that faces the street. Inside it retains key historic elements, including leaded glass windowpanes and a grand staircase with a moulded and fluted newel post. In the summer months it is surrounded by beautiful greenery, feels both beautifully natural and well kept.
From the HeRMIS Alberta Heritage Survey Program circa 1996 – image ID HS 66097 - 96-R0072-30.
What you can’t know by simply observing the house today is its more modern but equally significant history. From 1995-2000, Arthur Bishop Residence was known as the Black Orchid Manor, one of Calgary’s few gay-friendly B&Bs. The B&B was operated by Barry Gagliardi, Ron Scheetz, and Don Bastian, committed members of a three-way relationship (known as “3SM” amongst the community). Barry was a high school drama teacher, Ron an operations manager for the Hudson’s Bay Co., and Don a carpenter and wood artist. Under their stewardship, the house became a landmark amongst the LGBTQ2+ community and the site of many social gatherings, offering a safe, welcoming place for gay men.
This story resurfaced thanks to the diligence of one of Heritage Calgary’s top researchers, Kerri Rubman, during the re-evaluation of the heritage value of the property this spring. Rubman tracked down both Don Bastian and Ron Scheetz, who have long since moved on from Black Orchid Manor; Don Bastian, however, recalls those days running the B&B very well.
“We were so naïve,” Bastian says. “To my knowledge there were no Bed and Breakfast licenses available in Calgary yet at that time. B&Bs were a European thing, and they were in their infancy in Calgary. I think the first time anyone knew what we were doing was when the … Rotary Club had their huge gathering in Calgary, we were on the list for a bed and breakfast for people to stay at who were attendees to the Rotary. And up until that point I don’t think anybody really knew we existed.
“We never did apply for a license, we never did ask anybody whether we were right or wrong, we just went ahead and opened the doors and said, ‘this is what we’re doing’”.
Images of Black Orchid Manor circa 1995. The arbor (right) featuring the “Black Orchid Manor” sign was destroyed when a tree fell on it about six months after they had moved out. Shared with permission from Don Bastian.
The B&B was a massive success when it first opened. An article in the October 1996 issue of Avenue Magazine called the Black Orchid “a place of refuge”, a place where “same sex couples can stroll hand in hand in the garden or share a kiss on the patio deck away from the glare of disapproving eyes”. The president of the Bed and Breakfast Association of Calgary had noted that the service was “good news for the gay and lesbian community” as “there [were] a lot of B&B operators who wouldn’t approve of such arrangements” (Avenue).
The B&B had no issues with their Crescent Heights neighbours, though. “We had bought the house specifically to do a bed and breakfast, and people knew what we were doing in the neighbourhood,” he recollects. “There was no backlash or any problems.”
“I would say over half our clientele were bi men who were travelling to the city to do a business deal, but here was an opportunity to explore. So they would stay at our place, they had some freedom to talk the way they wanted to … of course, we’re naïve, at the time you don’t even ask … [but] in hindsight now, looking back, I would say at least half the men were bisexual men, or married men.”
While living there, Don and Ron built many interior and exterior improvements to the house. They added the deck and the walled ‘secret garden’, both which provided additional private social space. Black Orchid Manor got its name from the black lady slipper orchids Ron grew. Inside, among other changes, they finished the attic to add a bedroom and bathroom. The B&B also had a basement suite, which they rented to local SAIT students through the winter months.
Bastian’s talents as a carpenter went a long way to making the vision for Black Orchid Manor a reality. “That’s what made it fun for me,” he says. “That was my part of the contribution to the place. Barry would have an idea, he’d like a garden or whatever, and away we’d go. It was a lot of fun – it helped me hone my skills, I learned a lot, and we really had a good time with it. It made the house very special, and it also made the house… ‘refuge’ is a hard word to use, but it made it a safe space for people to explore.”
Black Orchid Manor was more than just a safe space for travellers, but a place of gathering for many in Calgary’s gay community. Barry cooked Sunday dinners for the family, B&B guests, and other members of the gay community who might be around that week. “It was just a good family chat. We might plan the next event or talk about what was going on in your life.”
“All of us used to have a great time together exploring how much fun we could have entertaining people.”
The Activist Years
Bastian was a hugely influential figure in the gay community, both in Canada and the United States, during his tenure as a B&B owner and beyond. His focus was on the leather culture, which “denotes practices and styles of dress organized around sexual activities that involve leather garments, such as leather jackets, vests, boots, chaps, harnesses, or other items” (Leatherpedia). It is one of many subcultures in the queer community and is considered to have grown out of the post-WW2 biker scene. It was “an aesthetic that resonated with gay men who couldn’t identify with the more effete stereotypes of the time” (Rolling Stone Magazine).
Bastian’s role as a public figure and activist was kickstarted when he first ran for the Mr. Alberta Drummer contest – a leather culture competition that Bastian calls “an odd American adaptation of a beauty pageant, when I look back on it”. Originating out of San Francisco, Mr. Drummer/Drummerboy contests were annual events arranged by the iconic Drummer Magazine from 1981 until the magazine ceased publication in 1999.
Bastian won the first Mr. Alberta Drummer contest, which was held in Calgary in July 1991. It was hosted by C.L.U.B. (Cowboy Leather Uniform Buddies) Calgary, a local leather/fetish organization that Bastian himself helped found in 1990. Bastian went on to be awarded the title of Mr. Northwest Drummer in 1991, which catapulted him into that year’s International Mr. Drummer contest in San Francisco. Bastian was the first Albertan (and likely only the second Canadian) entry to compete for the top prize among 13 other regions.
The contest requirements did lend itself well to gay activism. “You presented yourself, you did a little bit of stage work, and you did a speech about ‘what do I stand for in my community?’, ‘what do I do politically in my community?’,” Bastian explains. “[The Alberta circuit] was very infantile at the time – it grew very rapidly into a very successful circuit.”
The visibility of the competition “attracted broad cross-section of [the] gay community from many places” (USask), and it was one of many pushes to make visible a subsection of gay culture that had until then had been quite secretive, hidden even amongst the gay community.
Article from the Calgary Herald about the proclamation of the city’s first Gay Rights Week – 29 May 1991; subsequent opinion letters and coverage
Backlash throughout the summer led Mayor Al Duerr to regret his decision to proclaim Jul 16-22 Gay Rights Week in Calgary. Celebration of Pride Week continued throughout the 1990s without endorsement by the City of Calgary. Read more about the history of Calgary Pride here: www.calgarypride.ca/about/ourhistory/. Calgary Herald, 18 Oct 1991.
Competitions, participation in pride parades growing more extravagant by the year, and organizations, workshops, and demos attracted the attention of both traditional and the bourgeoning world of social media. Bastian, a creator or participant in all these activities, quickly made him a publicly recognized figure in Calgary. “Drag queens and leathermen are the ones that show up first on TV, on the news,” Bastian points out. The spotlight created some tension amongst the gay community, but it also created a home for those with similar interests who had perhaps felt isolated and unwelcome amongst their peers.
A tongue-in-cheek editorial cartoon from Calgary’s Swerve Magazine (2007), when Calgary hosted the inaugural North America OutGames. Illustration by Mark McIntyre.
“The SM community is very anonymous, usually… very rigid, very secretive. We opened the doors to all of that, kicked down the walls and it was all exposed, and it lost a lot of its allure, but it opened up doors for other people in the fetish world. It was a win-win… it gave people freedoms to feel freer about their fetishes and the things they wanted to do”.
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s Bastian took on leadership roles in various clubs and organizations in Calgary and participated in committees and competitions across the country and abroad. He wrote columns for Clue Magazine and Perceptions Magazine, regional LGBT news publications based in Calgary and Saskatoon, respectively.
In a less flashy and public stream of activism, Bastian was also responsible for advancing the concepts of safety and consent throughout the leather community. Throughout the 90s he hosted workshops and published literature promoting “safe, sane, and consensual” interactions amongst the leather community.
“Safe, sane, and consensual was the very large term within the community about how to play safe, about how to be safe – it wasn’t about just sex, it was about how you interacted and how you were as a community together, and not harm each other. Any repercussions sound familiar today?” he asks somewhat archly, referring to mask mandates put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic and the backlash against them. “We’re still struggling to keep people alive from AIDS today and we find ourselves in another pandemic. It’s so similar, it’s unbelievable to some of us.”
Bastian was honored for his activism and won several awards through the 90s and 00s, including an Outstanding Achievement Awards from C.L.U.B. Calgary (1991); Man of the Year at the Speak Sebastian Awards (Gay Community Awards, 1992); and Mr. NLA International, an ambassadorial role for the National Leather Association (1995).
A prolific activist in Calgary through the 90s in a city where gay culture was still targeted and misunderstood, Bastian helped advance gay rights and gay pride and undoubtedly influenced many lives – of the young, the closeted, and those seeking a place where they could truly be themselves.
The Max Block – former location of the Calgary Eagle Bar at 424 8 AV SE. The building was constructed in 1912 by Max Cohn, one of many Russian-Jewish immigrants who moved into the East Village neighbourhood at this time. Both he and the buildings’ tenants are associated with the neighbourhood's early twentieth-century ethnic population. Note the Pride flags over the front door. From Google Street View, 2007.
After Black Orchid Manor closed, 3SM moved on to a new venture, opening the legendary Calgary Eagle Bar in 2002 which, at the time, was Calgary’s first and only Leather Levi bar. The Calgary Eagle was established in one of Calgary’s now demolished historic buildings, the Max Block. Built in 1912-1913, the Max Block represented of the peak of Calgary's first retail/commercial building boom in the East Village neighbourhood and characterized an early developer's response to the anticipated growth of this area. It was one of the first mixed-use buildings erected in this part of Calgary to capitalize on the neighbourhood's ongoing retail needs and in anticipation of the increased requirement for low-rent, temporary housing with the expected influx of new residents. Over time, the Block was also known as the Maple Hotel (ca. 1913), Hampton Hotel (ca. 1914-1930s), and in later years as the Eagle Block (ca. 1990s).
Max Block (demolished 2013). From Calgary’s Inventory of Historic Resources.
“That name [the Eagle Calgary] was picked on purpose so that we did have some of this brotherhood around the world,” Bastian emphasizes. “If you go to Calgary there’s an Eagle bar, so you know there’s going to be men there.
The Eagle was not a franchise, but one of many bars across North America that intentionally used the word “Eagle” in its name. This was part of a tradition stemming from the 1970s, when the first gay Eagle Bar opened in New York City and quickly “became a popular spot for traditionally masculine-presenting gay men and hosted meetings for biker groups and sports clubs” (NBC). Word spread to other cities and soon featuring the word “Eagle” in the name of a bar acted as a signal to the gay community that the bar was a safe space – long before places were identified as such.
Bastian worked long nights behind the bar at the Calgary Eagle – it was his social life as well as his job. The family dinners 3SM began at Black Orchid Manor continued as the bar became rooted in the East Calgary community.
8 AV SE, prior to construction of the Calgary Central Library. Several historic buildings from the same era remain on this street including the St Louis Hotel (right), and both the Hillier Block and the Alberta Hide & Fur Co. Building (left). The Max Block, which once hosted the Calgary Eagle, was demolished in 2013. The site is now a parking lot. From Google Street View, 2007.