If indeed walls could talk, those at the Capital Hotel would tell tales of rocking bands, friendships made over pints of beer and a perfectly preserved dead cat, of course.

The famed hotel and watering hole is a staple of Main Street. It is now set to undergo a major renovation as ownership switches hands from a former politician to a young entrepreneur.

Maurice Byblow, the bar and hotel's owner since 1997, said it is time for him to hang up his bar rag and move onto greener pastures, literally.

Byblow, 61, told the Star this week he plans to summer at his family's Saskatchewan farm, and spend the rest of the year in Whitehorse working on carpentry projects he has put off for years.

"I'm older, I've worked hard all my life, the last 40 years, and I'm tired," he said.

Byblow is a former school teacher, town councillor in Faro, independent and NDP MLA/cabinet minister, and Faro Hotel owner.

The fast-paced nightlife of a bar keep is a young person's game, and he said he is happy to pass the torch on to Keith Jacobsen.

The 25-year-old stockbroker-turned-bar owner managed what used to be known as Shenanigan's. He is now the proprietor of Coaster's on Jarvis Street, and the yet-to-be-opened Coaster's Bistro.

Coaster's management is taken care of by what he calls skilled staffers, so he has his hands free and his sights set on his next project, which will see the Capital Hotel transformed into the city's only brew pub.

Jacobsen said the doors will close temporarily when he officially takes over ownership April 1, so cosmetic changes can transform the bar into a late 1800s-style pub serving the territory's oldest original brew from O'Brien Brewing and Malting.

It started as a small-scale brew operation in 1904, when Dawson City resident Thomas O'Brien continued brewing until the town fell under prohibition in 1919.

Since then, O'Brien Brewing and Malting has been only a story to tell, as most of the company's equipment was sold off by the 1930s.

Jacobsen said Byblow had suggested the beer when he had proposed the idea of a brew pub, and everything has since fallen into place.

The work required will certainly keep him busy, Jacobsen acknowledged, saying running the Capital Hotel is part of his long-term plans for at least the next decade.

A decade was good enough for By-blow, who said he will not be sad to leave the bar because "it's time," but acknowledges he's spent some great late nights with Whitehorse residents.

"When the place was packed on a Saturday night, a lineup out the door, the DJ pumping his boom-boom, everybody's happy and dancing, it's busy and there's no trouble, those nights are my best memories," he said.

The waves of nostalgia hit him as he offered a tour of the bar's basement, where history lines the shelves and old desktops inside old frames.

He picks up one of an old DJ he had hired, smiles, shakes his head in wonder, and places it back down among the rest.

The memories may be enriching, but their pull is not strong enough to see him stick around. Workdays starting at 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. and going well into the night are not meant for Byblow any longer.

"It's been an interesting lifetime, but it's time to slow down," he said with a sigh.

"The Capital Hotel needs fresh energy, a creative reworking of ideas," he said. "I think it'll be done with Keith; he'll do well."

At the forefront of Jacobsen's vision is morphing the existing dance floor into a brewery, where patrons can pass by and watch the beer they are drinking in its infancy, before walking about 20 feet over to a refurbished bar.

There, they will be poured a pint from spouts connected directly to the vats of finished beer in the next room.

"That's what I'm most excited about," said Jacobsen. He is also playing with the idea of having staff serve wearing period costumes, adding that all current staff will have to reapply under his ownership in time for the bar's reopening, which he expects to be in June.

The other question he's been asked is what he will do with the Capital Cat.

Today, a petrified cat unearthed in a 2002 renovation sits under glass atop the bar, beside an inscribed ballad written by Jonas Smith in 2003, and a brief history of the macabre relic.

"Personally, I'd like to get rid of it," Jacobsen said. "But of course, it depends on the public opinion."

The lore of the Capital Hotel extends to staff tales of ghost sightings, the bevy of scantily-clad women adorning the walls watching all that has ensued, and the familiar faces that line the bar rail.

Jacobsen acknowledged it's a big responsibility, but said he's up for the job.

"I'm a born-and-bred Yukoner, and embracing the history comes naturally to me," he said.

There is one chapter of the hotel's history that Jacobsen said he will be working to keep closed.

Earlier in the decade, drug dealers made their presence known at the bar, spawning many an RCMP appearance and a general melee of undesirable patrons.

Indeed, in 2006, vigilante Whitehorse residents stood outside the hotel in a united front, warning drug dealers to scram. Byblow said he worked hard to get the drug sellers out.

"I hope the drug scene does not return," he said.

Jacobsen said his good-time, laid-back brew pub will not be conducive to the kind of environment in which drug deals occur.

In addition to a brew pub, the Capital Hotel has served as a warehouse, a hardware store, a hair salon and, at one time, a rumoured brothel since its 1920 birth.

An idea spawned by a co-worker of his at Coaster's has Jacobsen toying with the idea of transforming the hotel rooms into a "Bombay Peggy's-style idea where each room has its own character," he said, referencing the popular Dawson City hotel.

Byblow and Jacobsen shook hands, laughing with each other about future plans and the tedium of paperwork to be signed.

The bison head perched above the bar watched as Jacobsen's eyes surveyed the room that is soon to be his for transforming.