Fairmont Royal York

Travellers stepping out of Union Station onto Front Street West have looked up at the same wall of stone since 10 June 1929, the day the Canadian Pacific Railway opened the Royal York. Renamed the Fairmont Royal York in 2001, the hotel still faces the station across the street in downtown Toronto, and an underground passage still joins the two.

History

The railway built on the site of the Queen's Hotel, a Victorian house that had been the city's leading address for decades before it was pulled down in 1927. The new Union Station opened across the road in the same decade, and Canadian Pacific wanted a hotel large enough to match it. At 28 storeys the Royal York was the tallest building in the British Empire when it opened. It held the title for barely two years, until the Canadian Bank of Commerce tower rose a few blocks north on King Street in 1931.

Royal guests gave the name substance. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth stayed during their tour of Canada in 1939, and Queen Elizabeth II used the hotel on later visits to the city. An extension completed in 1959 made a very large house larger still. In 2001, when Canadian Pacific Hotels took the Fairmont name for the whole group, the hotel became the Fairmont Royal York. A renovation carried out over several years and finished in 2019 reworked the rooms, the lobby and the restaurants.

Architecture and design

The Montreal firm Ross and Macdonald designed the building with the Toronto practice Sproatt and Rolph. They gave it the château manner that Canadian railway hotels had followed since the Château Frontenac in Quebec City: stepped massing, a steep copper roof gone green with age and a skyline of gables and dormers. Inside, the lobby keeps its coffered ceiling, its chandeliers and the clock that generations of Torontonians have used as a meeting point. The 2019 work left that room intact and opened a bar beneath the clock.

Rooms and suites

With more than 1,300 rooms, it is one of the largest hotels in Canada, and a luxury hotel in Toronto on a scale few cities can show. Rooms run through the original tower and the later wing. The Fairmont Gold floor works as a hotel within the hotel, with its own lounge, check-in and concierge, and the Royal Suite has been kept for heads of state and visiting royalty. The health club, with an indoor swimming pool and a gym, sits within the building.

Dining

REIGN, which opened with the renovation, is the main restaurant, set off the lobby. Clockwork, named for the lobby clock, serves champagne and cocktails in the space beneath it. The Library Bar, panelled and lined with bookshelves, has a long following for its martinis. Some of the honey and herbs used in the kitchens come from the roof, where the hotel has kept beehives and a kitchen garden since 2008.

Weddings and events

The Royal York was conceived as a meeting place for a whole city, and its function floors still serve that role. The Canadian Room is the largest ballroom. The Concert Hall dates from the original building. The Imperial Room was for decades Toronto's best-known supper club, where Ella Fitzgerald and Tony Bennett both appeared on stage; it now holds receptions, dinners and dances. Dozens of smaller rooms take board meetings, conferences and wedding dinners of every size.

Location

The address is 100 Front Street West, on the southern edge of the Financial District. Union Station connects the hotel to the subway, to GO Transit trains and to the UP Express, which reaches Toronto Pearson International Airport in about 25 minutes. Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, on the island in the harbour, is closer still for flights to Montreal, Ottawa and the American north-east. The PATH network of underground walkways runs north from the station to the bank towers, which matters in a Toronto January. The CN Tower, the Rogers Centre and the Scotiabank Arena are a short walk south and west, and the lakefront lies beyond the railway lines.