An extensive renovation of the Dominion Hotel, on Queen Street East in Toronto, has rehabilitated the much of the exterior stone work on the building, which was originally designed by architect David Roberts Jr.Dave LeBlanc/The Globe and Mail
According to most sources, the first hotel chain in North America was Quality Courts, a group of seven Florida hotels that banded together in 1939. It became Quality Inns International in 1972.
And, according to this writer, 1939 marks the beginning of the end for quirky, independent, interesting hotels that said something about their location. Well, for about a half-century, in any case. Today, those of us who enjoy quirk have the boutique hotel, but that doesn’t stop one from wondering about what a hotel stay would’ve been like in the 19th-century, when inns were “nodal points of the transport system.” That is, places where coaches or streetcars stopped, or where farmers came to arrange for the sale of goods. They were also, continues Susanne Schmid in her book Inns, places for “locals, travellers, tradesmen, and politicians to socialize.” Sounds fun, no?
Toronto, of course, as a very British place back in the 19th and early-20th centuries, had a cornucopia of choice. In the Might’s Toronto City Directory of 1900, I counted 180 hotels, including some of the names that are still familiar today: the Black Bull, Cameron House, Empress (destroyed by an arsonist in 2011), Hotel Gladstone and the Palace (Arms). And then there was the Dominion Hotel, which opened in 1890 at 498-500 Queen St. E. and Sumach Street.
The Dominion was designed by architect David Roberts Jr. (1845-1907), who also penned the Windsor Hotel at 124 Church St. (1882, now McVeigh’s pub), and many grand homes and distillery buildings for the Gooderham family along with their flatiron building at 49 Wellington St. E. Which suggests the Toronto-born Roberts was likely not a cheap hire. So, that begs the question, was Dominion Hotel a happening place?
“The historical photos are really intriguing,” says ERA Architect’s Alex Okuka, who worked on the restoration. “It was just so ornate here before, like, the transom windows were beautiful. … It’s crazy to think what [the ground floor] would’ve been used for.”
Indeed. Photographs from 1945 – which is likely a few decades after the hotel’s prime – show intricate cut-glass transoms over elegant, tall shop windows, a grand entrance and a stubby tower with a tall peak lording over a mansard roof with dormers.
Yet, a quick search in the Toronto Star and The Globe & Mail archives turns up scant evident of swanky parties or sophisticated happenings. Only one piece, from the Aug. 27, 1955 Globe, mourning the death of Alberta Crittall Shore, who “owned and lived” in the hotel in series of Victorian-bedecked rooms, and was known for wearing “fabulously expensive jewels, hats, and furs” gives a tantalizing hint.
Dominion Hotel, Queen Street East, Torontohoussmax.ca
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At some point in its history, the tower and entire fourth storey was lost, which, says ERA’s Simone Gargano, contained some sort of “performance space.” And then, to further obliterate the craftsmanship, photos from the 1970s and 80s show all brickwork and sandstone painted grey and burgundy, and the big shop windows filled in with angel brick. If any natural light penetrated at all, it was through tiny punched windows (with metal awnings) inset into the cheap material.
By 1980, the Sunday Star reported that the Dominion was cashing welfare cheques a few days in advance for a dollar on every hundred: “In a few hours, the pub’s proprietors will make about $5,000.”
Thankfully, around the time that sad image was fading, the paint was stripped off to reveal the proud exterior once again. But the strange infill panels (no longer angel brick) covering the windows remained when ERA was asked to make the grand old lady safe in 2021.
While the restoration began with a relatively small scope of securing sandstone carvings or repairing cracks, replacing flashing and brick, making Jahn patches (Jahn mortar is a repair material that replicates cast stone), and installing replacement pieces for the cornice, the building owner decided to take things a step further and bring the retail wall back to an approximation of what it had once been.
“And so the subdivision in three, the [separation] of entrances for wayfinding was kind of the initial approach,” says Mr. Gargano. “We used aluminum for the structure. … We provided a divided transom. We were trying to provide a decoration that was geometric and simple and modern.” Current tenants Los Gyros have added a film to the inside of the transoms (their interior features lovely black-light paintings by artist Alex Noya) so they are hard to see from the street.
But, walking inside, our eyes take in the new feature as our feet are treated to original terrazzo floors in surprisingly good shape; the only intervention is for accessibility. And, of course, the view of the TTC’s red rockets whizzing by on Queen is a welcome sight. “We wanted to ensure that what we wanted to do was feasible without [adding] a further structural element in the middle of the façade,” says Mr. Gargano.
It’s a handsome space, and a wonderful addition to Regent Park/Corktown. And while it would be nice to see additional bits of restoration done, such as reinstatement of the arched caps topping the third-floor windows, or even a modern, glass-box added to the roof as was done on the Broadview Hotel less than a kilometre to the east, all in good time. This is a neighbourhood that’s improving slowly on its own terms, and will end up looking more like the new, mixed-income Regent Park rather than gentrified Leslieville.
“They come for the beer and then try the food, and come back for the food,” says Los Gyros manager Jesus Cruz of the locals. “They came the first week and now they are coming every week.”