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If, as the legends claim, there are ghosts residing in the basement of The Remington Bar in downtown Whitefish, they’ve had to deal with a lot of commotion in the last six months.

That and a white-haired, middle-aged, heavily tattooed entrepreneur cracking jokes, giving direction and generally filling the space and air above them with his ubiquitous presence and syrup-thick New York accent.

Then again, it’s no surprise Queens native Dave Sheeran is spending almost all his time at apparitions’ home these days. He bought the place in December.

“This became available,” Sheeran remembered. “And I said, ‘(shoot), I know how to do this better than anybody.’

“This is my thing, so I pulled it off.”

Sheeran was already renting space in The Remington, operating his Latin-fusion restaurant — Mama Blanca’s — since late 2015, building on his restaurant portfolio that started with Second Street Pizza and its locations in Whitefish and Kalispell.

He had been a part of the bar business before, owning bars in New York City just as his father and grandfather had. But returning to the sometimes chaotic life of a bar owner wasn’t what Sheeran had in mind when he and his family relocated to the mountains of Montana shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“When I moved out here I wanted to get away from the bar a little,” he said. “I had two little kids I had just had, so I went into the food.”

That changed when Ted Spraul, who had owned The Remington since the 1980s, wanted to sell and it turned out his tenant was game. Sheeran, his partner, Sam Beougher, and his wife, Susana, couldn’t resist the pull back to the bar.

“I love it,” he said. “If I could be like Jon Taffer and have a show like ‘Bar Rescue,’ that’d be the perfect thing for me, because I love setting them up.

“Just figuring out what’s the best way to do everything.”

THE BEST way to do things at The Remington, at least in Sheeran’s eyes, started with a $150,000 renovation that is still ongoing.

And it also meant bringing live music on a regular basis to The Remington, and music from not just Northwest Montana. Sheeran has already booked acts from across the country.

The Remington will hold its “Grand Opening” — so called despite the fact that the bar has been open throughout renovations — on June 21 featuring live music from Shane Smith and the Saints, an Austin, Texas band that played the prestigious Austin City Limits Music Festival in 2016. Other national acts on the docket include Radio Birds (June 25), Paul Thorn Band (July 13), The Black Lillies (July 23), Reckless Kelly (Aug. 17) and Tyler Childers (Aug. 18).

“Well I’m starting right off the bat that way,” Sheeran said of booking national bands. “And then I’m only going to let certain local bands that I like play; everybody wants to play because it’s a nice setup.”

The Remington will sell up to 400 tickets each night to see the national bands, with shows ranging in price from $5 to $25. In between those show are a whole host of cover-free concerts from locals, including The One in Olney Band, Badger Hound, Gladys Friday, the Flip Wilsons, 20 Grand and more. The bar is also hosting “The Remington’s Got Talent” Tuesdays at 9 p.m., an open-format talent show that gives $100 to the weekly winner.

All the new activity at the bar will take place on a brand new stage in the back half of the building, replacing a pair of relocated pool tables. Next to the stage, which is on the south wall, is a wide open space that will double as a dance floor at night and table seating during the day. The Remington also has a bar operating in the back of the building and a raised VIP section with waitress service.

The acquisition of the bar — and its liquor license — also meant Sheeran could extend Mama Blanca’s seating and serve cocktails. Sheeran said his staff is squeezing fresh lime and orange juice to mix up fresh cocktails to go with Mama Blanca’s menu of pressed sandwiches, tacos, burritos and more.

THINGS TODAY are starting to look newer at The Remington, but part of the bar’s old charm — it’s haunted history — still remains.

The building originally operated as the Northern Hotel in the early 1900s before respected Whitefish businessman Mokutaro M. Hori purchased the property in 1919. Hori, who once worked for Kalispell’s founding family, the Conrads, had his hotel’s lobby in what is now the bar, and rooms for rent upstairs.

It was during this time, as legend goes, that a violent death spawned the ghost that haunts The Remington’s basement.

Ghostly occurrences aside, in Hori’s day the hotel — which he renamed Hori Hotel — had a sterling reputation, as did a restaurant, Frederic’s Fine Dining, that came some years later.

“His was kind of upscale,” Karl Schenck, manager of the Stumptown Historical Society, said of the Hori Hotel. “(Hori) was a top citizen kind of guy.”

Hori’s wife sold the hotel in the mid-1940s, more than a decade after his passing, and it was renamed The Palm Hotel. That name stuck into the 1970s when The Palm became known more as a popular discotheque.

Spraul acquired the property in the 1980s and eventually added 20 electronic gaming machines, more, Sheeran claims, than any other bar in Whitefish. It is those machines that occupy the front half of The Remington today. The subtle separation of the areas — casino in front, long bar in the middle, restaurant on the side and stage in the back — has The Remington in shape to cater to any customer.

But Sheeran, who said he feels fully accepted in the community despite not being a native, is catering his friends and neighbors first and foremost. He said the response from customers has been tremendous since he announced he was taking over, and he expects that to continue or even grow as the summer continues.

“The beautiful thing is it’s a local joint,” he said. “It’s definitely the town being behind me and me being down with the town. It’s got me to where I’m at.”

That doesn’t mean, however, that the man who aspires to rescue bars on TV and loves the challenge of creating new spaces is back fully in the bar game.

“I’m tired,” he said when asked if more bars were in his future. “My hair’s turning white.”

Entertainment editor Andy Viano can be reached at (406) 758-4439 or aviano@dailyinterlake.com.