Casa Loma Toronto, Canada - Toronto’s House on the Hill

A medieval castle in the heart of Toronto

Casa Loma, in the heart of downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is often referred to as a “folly” - defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as “a costly undertaking having an absurd or ruinous outcome”. True enough. But if Casa Loma is a ‘folly’, it is one which is both grandiose and tragic - a monument to irony.

Casa Loma was envisaged by its owner, Sir Henry Pellatt, as a medieval castle and indeed it is an extravagant fairy-tale structure with Norman and Scottish towers, Gothic and Romanesque battlements, towers, chimneys, and crenellations. Built between 1911 and 1914 at a cost of approximately $3.5 million ($44 million by today’s values), its foundations go down 45 feet, and the Scottish Tower rises 130 feet above ground.

Extraordinary as Casa Loma is with all its treasures and idiosyncrasies, it is the ghosts of Sir Henry and his wife Lady Mary Pellatt that still, metaphorically speaking, haunt its 98 rooms, and glide like wistful shadows along its corridors.

In retrospect, Sir Henry appears to have been a victim of circumstances. Far from being callow or feckless, he was an outstanding sportsman, military officer, philanthropist, connoisseur of art and architecture, and entrepreneur extraordinaire. The Toronto Electric Light Company (which he founded at the age of 24), built the first Canadian hydro-electric generating plant at Niagara Falls, and had the monopoly of supplying street lighting to the city.

Sir Henry was, by 1901, chairman of 21 companies with interests ranging from Canadian Pacific Railroad and the North West Land Company, to mining and insurance. In 1905, he was further honored with a knighthood in recognition of his service as Commanding Officer of the Queen’s Own Rifles.

Seemingly blessed with a Midas touch, Sir Henry then decided to indulge his romantic fantasy of a medieval castle and Casa Loma began to take shape. However, shortly afterwards, a series of fateful events turned gold to dross. Firstly, political motivation led to a government take-over of the Electric Light Company.

In the economic slump following the First World War, the value of Sir Henry’s land acquisitions plummeted, and the slide into bankruptcy was accelerated by his debt of $1.7 million to the Home Bank of Canada. The final hammer-blow came in the shape of a retroactive property tax bill on the Casa Loma estate, amounting to $12,000 per year.

So barely ten years after its completion, it lay empty. Its treasures were auctioned off at a pittance, and the castle crumbled into decay. Sir Henry moved with Lady Pellatt to their country farm house in 1924 and Lady Pellatt, in frail health, and now broken in heart and spirit, died that year. Sir Henry although bowed under by financial difficulties, never relinquished his public-spirited joie de vivre, and when he died in 1939, he was buried with full military honors as befitting his life and service to the country.

Today, along with a multitude of tourists, I listen to Lady Pellatt’s guided tour, recorded on cassette, as she describes each room of the home she loved so well: the library with its herringbone-striped hardwood floor, and the family crest and motto “Devant Si Je Puis” (“Foremost If I Can”) embedded in the ceiling plaster; the elaborate bronze and glass doors, and magnificent back-lit stained glass dome in the Conservatory (where the soil temperature was maintained by steam pipes buried in the flower beds) and the meticulously restored Wedgwood blue decor of her elegant private apartments.

Casa Loma has its share of whimsy: a replica of the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey stands to one side in the baronial splendor of the Great Hall; two secret passages lead off Sir Henry’s study, one to his bedroom upstairs, the other to the wine cellar downstairs; an 800 foot tunnel runs 18 feet below ground level to connect the main building with the stables; ovens in the kitchen were large enough to roast an ox-and the city’s first elevator labeled “Otis 1”, was installed to accommodate Lady Pellatt’s wheelchair.

In its heyday Casa Loma boasted 59 telephones and the telephone operator handled more calls per day than the entire City of Toronto.

Also woven into Casa Loma’s intriguing past is that during World War II, its stables were used as a top-secret location for construction of the Anti-Submarine Sonar Detection devices (‘ASDIC’) installed on our warships.

Had he been alive then, the fact that his “folly” played such a crucial role in the war effort, would have swelled Sir Henry’s loyal military heart with pride: a sweet aftertaste to the bitter loss of his beloved home. For more Casa Loma information check the website at www.casaloma.org.

Getting There:

• From Vancouver, Canada 3000 serves Toronto with daily flights throughout the summer.
• Please check with your travel agent for details.

Author: Margaret Deefholts