Royal York

How the Stage was Set

HISTORY IN BRIEF:

In 1843 a building on the area today occupied by The Royal York was built.

1929: Opening year of The Royal York, which became the fourth hotel on the site.

1993: After a major investment project prepared the hotel for the 21st century.

HISTORY IN DETAIL

1843: Captain Thomas Dick, a respected lake-boat captain, built Ontario Terrace, which consisted of four brick houses. The humble row project was soon thereafter occupied by Knox Theological College. 1853: The building was refurbished and renamed the Sword's Hotel, and then, following a change of ownership, renamed the Revere Hotel.

1862: Captain Dick bought back the property and renovated it yet again. The stately Queen's Hotel, as it was then called, became an integral part of the boomtown. It was even rumoured to be the site of Sir John A. Macdonald's meeting with American Civil War sympathizers who plotted retaliation.

1920s: The Canadian Pacific Railway announced it would build the largest hotel in the British Commonwealth on the site of Queen’s Hotel. Citizens were shocked by the demolition of their beloved Queen's Hotel; nevertheless, construction began in 1927, immediately across from Union Station and Canadian Pacific Railway.

1929: 11 June: The hotel officially opened as The Royal York. It was designed by Ross and Macdonald (with Sproatt and Rolph) and built by the Canadian Pacific Railway across the street from Union Station. With 28 floors, the Château-style building was the tallest building in Toronto at that time, and the tallest building in the British Empire until the construction of Toronto’s Canadian Bank of Commerce tower on King Street one year later. The hotel boasted 1,048 rooms, each with radios, private showers and bathtubs. The 1.5 acres of public rooms included a 12-bed hospital, 12,000-book library and ten ornate passenger elevators. The Concert Hall featured a full stage and mammoth pipe organ weighing 50 tons, which surpassed anything else in Canada with 300 miles of copper wire. There was a glass-enclosed roof garden, the largest hotel kitchen in Canada with a bakery that could produce over 15,000 French rolls a day, a 66 foot long switchboard manned by 35 telephone operators, its own bank and golf course.

1959: The hotel was enlarged with the addition of the east wing to a total of 1,600 rooms and was the largest hotel in the Commonwealth for many years. 1988-93: a $100 million project refurbished guestrooms, public spaces, a health club, sky-lit lap pool and the first-ever American Express Travel Service Centre. 1999: Canadian Pacific spun-off Canadian Pacific Hotels, along with all its properties. The new company was renamed Fairmont Hotels & Resorts in an effort to reflect its growing global presence and ambitions

From the World of Politics Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II