Page 22 - Flathead Beacon // 7.23.14

22 | JULY 23, 2014 FLATHEADBEACON.COM
FUNKY TOWN THE PALM & THE DISCO DAZE OF WHITEFISH
The Palm Hotel
In July 1976, Baalim purchased The Palm Hotel, which is now the Remington Bar and Ca- sino, after he and his wife, Susan, completed a 9,000-mile tour of the United States and Mex- ico, scouring the countries for the perfect spot to build a discotheque. After considering places like Phoenix and Los Angeles, the Lethbridge, Alberta couple pointed their rig at Whitefish, where they had vacationed for years, loved the lake and the ski hill, and decided a discotheque would be a fine, if unlikely, fit.
The Palm Hotel, Casino and Discotheque featured a $30,000 sound system and a three- level dance floor made of plexiglass. Covering the walls were four 60-square-foot light con- soles, composed of eight-by-eight individual light panels that flashed in geometric patterns timed to the beat of the music. A disc jockey worked two turntables and a live drummer played suspended from a hanging stage.
The remodeling struck a 1930s lounge motif and cost more than $250,000, but Baalim opted to keep the hotel’s longtime name, The Palm, to evoke its textured history.
The structure was originally built in 1909 by Mokutaro Hori and was called the Hori Ho- tel. Hori arrived in the states from Japan pen- niless and worked as a houseboy for the Conrad family in Kalispell. Eventually, Charles Conrad
Dancers at The Palm Discotheque’s lighted dance floor. COURTESY OF PAT PIERONI
gave him 10 acres in Whitefish.
With a $50,000 loan Hori opened a hotel,
restaurant and bakery, as well as a ranch and agricultural farm. His beef and vegetables were awarded a blue ribbon in a contest and supplied the dining cars of the Great Northern Railway across the continent. Aya, Hori’s wife, warmly welcomed the railroad and lumberyard work- ers who lived hand-to-mouth, dishing out stews from the backdoor of her restaurant.
Meanwhile, Hori invited Sumo wrestlers from Japan, hosted a fireworks festival and planted Japanese cherry trees until he died of stomach cancer in 1931 at the age of 58.
“He became the preeminent businessman in Whitefish and was highly respected,” Jill Ev- ans, of the Stumptown Historical Society, said. “At his funeral there were thousands of people.”
Five years ago, Evans nominated Hori to the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame, and he was inducted.
During World War II, Aya continued to run the hotel, and hid Japanese refugees from de- tention camps, squirreling them away in rooms built beneath what would become the disco dance floor.
The Palm’s rich history bled into the na- scent disco days beginning with the restora- tion, when builders discovered artifacts and antiques in the hotel’s basement rooms.
Pat Pieroni was living in Spokane, Washing- ton and had just broken up with his girlfriend
in the summer of 1976. He wanted a change of pace, and on a capricious whim settled on Whitefish, where he landed a job building the discotheque.
“I was kind of a lone ranger when I landed with that crew and got hired on. It was a unique period because the people we worked with were operating in a very high creative mode. We were just kind of flying by the seat of our pants. The place was ugly as hell until we started stripping it,” Pieroni recalled. “But as they started strip- ping everything back, we started finding things that were so cool – bottles, silverware, knick- knacks, lamps and lanterns from the early 1900s. The metal ceilings were still intact with this ornate, stamped metal that curved on the corners, and we found this old trap door that led to the basement and there were dozens of shrink-wrapped boxes of Havana cigars from Cuba, old beer advertisements and calendars. And as we discovered these things, we built these cabinets with plexiglass on them and dis- played all these artifacts across the back of the bar. We were working 18-hour days because we needed to have that thing open by January for the ski season, but we were having a lot of fun.”
Where Pleasure is the First Resort
Just before Christmas 1976, The Palm opened its doors to the public, unveilings its