‘Elmwood was heaven’ — Windsor hosted playground to rich, famous

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Famous musicians, World Series champions, and fugitive bank robbers — everyone wanted to party at Windsor’s Elmwood Casino. 

For an improbable three decades, the iconic supper club was an international destination for glitz, glamour, and indulgence. 

It was a white table-clothed playground for the rich of the American Midwest and the celebrities they came to see, from Sammy Davis Jr. to Barbra Streisand. 

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It’s been 50 years since the music died and the drinks dried up after the Elmwood, unable to compete with soaring star salaries and inelegant stadium shows, shut down on Dec. 21, 1974. 

But at its height, there was nothing like it between New York and Las Vegas. For those who remember the long-gone Elmwood, the place still holds magic. The stories are larger than life. Almost hard to believe.

“The Elmwood, to me, was heaven,” said former general manager Mark Brown, 94, who started working there in 1951. “It was beautiful. I loved the place.

“It was very special because there wasn’t another club like ours in Canada. The only place at that time you could find clubs like it was in Vegas.” 

The original Elmwood Hotel opened in 1934 on Dougall Avenue, beyond what was then Windsor’s city limits.  

Plagued by a lingering Prohibition hangover, it was the target of repeated police raids for violations, including selling beer on Sunday and having liquor in the bar room. It was only licensed to sell beer and wine. 

“They were still stuck in this mode that alcohol was bad,” said Walkerville Publishing co-owner Chris Edwards, who wrote about the Elmwood in several books. “The authorities did everything they could to prevent anybody from having a good time.”  

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Fire destroyed the Elmwood Hotel on Dec. 19, 1943. The flames burned out of control when fire trucks were delayed by a freight train at the nearby rail crossing. 

Losses included 140 cases of beer, eight half-barrels of beer, and 100 bags of potatoes, according to a Windsor Star story about the calamity. 

Construction on the new Elmwood Casino began in 1944, then quickly stopped. 

The federal government slapped the builders with a stop-work order for using steel despite a wartime embargo. 

My god, it was extravagant

The art deco nightclub eventually re-opened in 1946. Prohibition puritanism had waned. But there were other societal quirks to contend with.  

“Women were not even allowed to drink in bars,” said Edwards, who chronicles the shared history of Windsor and Detroit in the upcoming book A River Runs Between Us.  

“They had to have special rooms called Ladies and Escorts. What the Elmwood did was start to fill in the gaps. Couples could actually go out again.” 

The man at the top was Toronto’s Al Siegel, who also sold Wurlitzer jukeboxes and would later open Windsor Raceway. 

The opulent new Elmwood sat on 11 acres. It boasted a nightclub, bar, restaurant, banquet rooms, and a 103-room hotel with a pool. There was also the chandeliered Ambassador Room where all the stars came to shine. 

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Despite the name, there was no gambling at Elmwood Casino. 

“The ladies were dressed to the nines,” said Silvio Venerus, 74, who began working there in 1965. “When they drove up to the Elmwood, they had a door man that opened the car door. He had a red, beautiful suit with white gloves and a top hat.

“My god, it was extravagant.” 

Most of the clientele were well-heeled Americans. By the mid-1960s, the first thing anyone emerging from Windsor’s side of the international tunnel saw was a giant billboard with two arrows on it. One pointed to Windsor Raceway, the other to Elmwood Casino. Al Siegel owned them both. 

“He brought a lot of business from the United States, because the shows we featured at the Elmwood were not available in Michigan, Ohio or Indiana,” said Brown. “We used to have people from those states on a regular basis.” 

Billed as the “Show Spot of Canada,” the Elmwood boasted blistering star power.  

Tony Bennett, Liberace, Ella Fitzgerald, Frankie Avalon, Liza Minelli, Glen Campbell, Englebert Humperdinck, Wayne Newton, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Sonny and Cher, Ray Charles, The Supremes. 

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Siegel gave Rat Pack icon Sammy Davis Jr. his big break — and paid off his debts when nefarious-looking men came looking for him, according to some former staff members. 

Davis never forgot it, returning repeatedly to play the Elmwood. He also liked to hit the links at Roseland and the former Woodall Golf Centre, where he hung out in the clubhouses and basked in his own celebrity.  

“He tipped everybody famously,” said Edwards. “He just rolled out the dollar bills. He got treated like the star that he was.

“Don’t forget, he was a Black man, so it was tough. He never knew what kind of reception he was going to get. But he loved coming to Windsor because everybody treated him so well.” 

When Tom Jones took the stage in 1972 for 22 sold-out shows over 11 days, frenzied women threw their underwear at him. 

“I took a sauna with Tom Jones,” said former busboy Bill Castelluci, 72. “There was only one health club in Windsor. They would open it up early for him and he’d go work out. He loved taking saunas and steams.” 

Castelluci said he once struck a peculiar bargain with Al Martino, the musician with real-life mob ties who played singer Johnny Fontane in The Godfather. 

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In exchange for Castelluci passing a pretty new showgirl a note from Martino, the singer agreed to serenade the young busboy’s mother at his Elmwood show. 

“Those kinds of stars in that setting, and being able to interact with them, it was something unbelievable,” he said. 

There were also famous faces in the audience. American movie star John Wayne was among those who dropped by. 

“This is how big the place was: in 1968, the Detroit Tigers, after they won the pennant, all came for a show,” said Castelluci. 

Some of the guests were more infamous than famous. 

One Detroit gangster donned a disguise — going as far as wearing a face mask — to get through customs any time pop crooner Jerry Vale played the Elmwood. 

“There were guys who came in that were mobbed-up from the states,” said Castelluci. “It was no big deal.” 

One night in November 1971, a mysterious man steamrolled through the doors, looking for a party. He didn’t mind throwing around cash, including $5,000 in tips. 

“It was crazy money,” said Castelluci. “I think the busboy got $500. It was nuts.” 

The next morning, a story on the front page of the Detroit Free Press explained why the man was so giddy. 

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Only hours before his Elmwood celebration, he robbed the Detroit Bank and Trust. His crew made off with $90,800. 

It didn’t occur to anyone at the Elmwood to call police. 

“None of the busboys or any of the kids working were going to give any of the money back,” said former busboy Rob Miller, 71, who was there that night. “I don’t remember anyone sharing it with the cops.” 

That night might have been exceptional, but there was always big money at the Elmwood. 

The tips put Miller through university. 

“At the time I thought I was the hardest-working guy in show business,” he said. “All we really did was sell cigarettes out of the cigarette machine in the hallway.” 

The machine dispensed a pack of smokes for 25 cents.  

“You would open the package of cigarettes and put it on a tray,” said Miller. “They’d tip you like five bucks for it. It was this scam for all the busboys.” 

Castelluci said that as a teenager, when his father made $100 a week working for the city, he could take home $500 in tips. He started working at the Elmwood in 1967. He was 15. 

“I lied about my age to get a social insurance number,” he said. “That bit me when I turned 60 because my dates were all mixed up.” 

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His cousin was hired first and got him in. 

“I was a poor kid from the west end,” said Castelluci. “Didn’t know what a steak was. Didn’t know what any of that stuff was. The high life.” 

It seemed like a decent alternative to his “life of crime in the west end.” 

“We used to rip off eight-track players,” he said. “We had a great thing going. Five bucks apiece. If you bought 10 you got one free.” 

His first shift at the Elmwood was a Saturday in the Ambassador Room. He was nearly fired. 

“I couldn’t carry a tray,” he said. “I was just overwhelmed by the whole situation.” 

He was quickly relegated to the Cantonese Room, a restaurant where rookies earned their stripes and Siegel watched over everything from “the boss’s table.” 

Siegel was occasionally joined at the table by his famous guests, including Jimmy Durante, who ordered cornflakes. Half milk, half cream on the side. 

“The table had a phone on it — back then,” said Castelluci. “That was big-time.” 

But at some point, the high-rolling and fast times began to sputter. 

Some believe the 1968 Detroit riots marked the beginning of the end, or the catastrophic recession that swept across the continent in the early 1970s. 

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“Everybody was going belly-up in Windsor,” said Venerus. “It has hard times.” 

But more than anything, the growing dominance of stadium concerts and Las Vegas glitter put Siegel out of business. Larger ticket sales at those venues meant stars could demand bigger paycheques. 

“He couldn’t afford the acts that he had helped make famous,” said Edwards. 

When the stars stopped coming, Siegel started offering dinner theatre. His nightclub limped along for a couple of more years. 

“The dinner theatres weren’t too bad,” said Venerus. “But the audience kept decreasing because it was four months of the same show.” 

When the doors closed on Dec. 21, 1974, the place was $2 million in debt. 

Siegel declared bankruptcy a week later. Shortly after, he left his wife and son in Toronto and moved to the Bahamas with his secretary. They later settled in Florida, where Siegel died from a heart attack on Jan. 17, 1988, at age 86. 

In an ironic twist, the building that once housed the boozy nightclub became an addictions facility. Brentwood Recovery Centre took it over in 1984, serving some former Elmwood customers.  

“The era was gone, never to come back,” said Castelluci. “You’ll never experience what we experienced ever again. And that to me is really a void.” 

twilhelm@postmedia.com

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