Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth

Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth occupies a full block of boulevard René-Lévesque in downtown Montreal, directly above Central Station. Opened by the Canadian National Railway in 1958, it is the largest hotel in Quebec and the one that history remembers for a week in 1969, when John Lennon and Yoko Ono held their Bed-In for Peace in Suite 1742. A renovation completed in 2017 turned the building into the contemporary luxury hotel in Montreal for conventions, galas and visiting delegations.

History

Canadian National built the hotel over its Central Station in the 1950s as the anchor of a new downtown, with the Place Ville Marie office tower rising next door at the same time. The choice of the name caused a public argument: Quebec nationalists petitioned for Château Maisonneuve, but the railway kept its tribute to the young Queen Elizabeth II, and the hotel opened on 15 April 1958 under Hilton management. It received the visitors of Expo 67, General de Gaulle during his visit of 1967 and Queen Elizabeth II herself.

On 26 May 1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono moved into Suite 1742 for a week-long Bed-In for Peace, receiving journalists and friends from the bed. On 1 June they recorded Give Peace a Chance in the room with the people present. Since then the suite has been kept as a destination for visitors. Canadian Pacific Hotels took over the hotel in the late 1980s and gave it the Fairmont name in 1999. It closed in June 2016 for a complete renovation and reopened in July 2017.

Architecture and design

The building is a 21-storey slab of the late 1950s, plain outside and built around its connection to the station and the Underground City. The 2017 renovation by the Montreal firm Sid Lee Architecture rebuilt the lobby as an open hall with a bar, a market-style café and an urban-lounge floor for coworking, and redecorated the rooms in a mid-century idiom that refers to the opening years. Suite 1742 was redone with photographs, recordings and objects from the Bed-In.

Rooms and suites

The hotel has about 950 rooms and suites, which makes it the largest in the province. Rooms on the upper floors look over Mount Royal to the north or towards the river and the Old Port to the south. Fairmont Gold floors have their own lounge and reception. Suite 1742, the John Lennon and Yoko Ono suite, can be booked as an ordinary suite.

Dining

Rosélys, the main restaurant, serves breakfast, lunch and dinner in a bright room off the lobby. Nacarat, the lobby bar, opened with the 2017 renovation and keeps late hours. The Marché Artisans food hall on the ground floor sells Quebec produce, pastries and prepared dishes to guests and to office workers from Place Ville Marie.

Wellness

The hotel has an indoor swimming pool with a view over the city, a fitness centre and a spa with treatment rooms, all on the upper floors.

Weddings and events

The Queen Elizabeth has been Montreal's convention hotel since it opened. Its meeting floors include a large ballroom, exhibition space and dozens of breakout rooms, with direct access from the station and the Underground City for delegates arriving by train or metro. Weddings are held in the ballroom and in the smaller salons, and corporate dinners fill the hotel during the Montreal conference season.

Location

The hotel is at 900 boulevard René-Lévesque Ouest, above Central Station, where VIA Rail trains from Toronto, Quebec City and Ottawa arrive, and connected underground to Bonaventure and McGill metro stations and to Place Ville Marie. Sainte-Catherine Street and the shops are two blocks north, Old Montreal lies 15 minutes' walk to the south, and Montréal-Trudeau International Airport some 20 kilometres to the west.