Evergrande debt crisis triggers worry, rot at iconic Chateau Montebello hotel

globalnews.ca:

China Evergrande Group’s massive financial and legal challenges in Asia are casting a long, dark shadow over the Chateau Montebello, the iconic Quebec log cabin resort which the developer owns.Evergrande, a once fast-growing Chinese property company that became the country’s second-largest developer, acquired the 211-room Chateau Montebello hotel in 2014.The deal earned headlines because the Chateau Montebello is the largest log cabin ever built. It occupies a special place in the Canadian psyche and the nation’s history.

It has hosted G7 and NATO leader summits, prime ministers, presidents, movie stars and even royalty.Now, however, Montebello municipal leaders, local workers, guests and even tourism rivals are increasingly anxious about the Chateau Montebello’s future and its deteriorating physical condition under heavily indebted Evergrande’s ownership.“The Chateau is our biggest employer and largest taxpayer. We’re worried,” Montebello Mayor Nicole Laflamme says.

“Hundreds of local people in the village work there.”Edmond Kingsbury, who owns the rival Petit Chateau Montebello bed and breakfast down the road from the big Chateau, says village residents are keenly aware that Evergrande is, as he puts it, “in big financial trouble.” His friends include several resort workers.“The Chateau needs a lot of maintenance, and they seem unwilling to pay for it,” Kingsbury says. “If you don’t maintain the wood, it’s an old wood structure, and it will rot.

I talk to people who work at the Chateau, and that’s what they tell me is going on.”The Chateau Montebello was built in 1930. Finnish immigrant Victor Nymark, a master log builder who came to Canada in 1924, oversaw its construction in just four months.Loggers from Western