Gladstone Hotel, Toronto
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The Gladstone Hotel was built in 1889 by George Miller and named after Gladstone Avenue, next to the hotel. The street was named for British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone. The Parkdale area hotel is a west Toronto landmark in the Romanesque Revival style.
The Gladstone Hotel is the oldest continuously operating hotel in Toronto, and features a hand-operated elevator. It was built across the street from three railroad stations—the Grand Trunk, CNR, and CPR—and enjoyed the patronage of travelling businessmen. Its original owner was Susanna Robinson, widowed with 13 children, all of whom lived in the hotel. Its three-storey steeple dominated the area skyline until the 1940s. In its early years, it was the last place westbound travellers could get a drink before reaching Hamilton.
In 1989, it was restored by a family by the name of Appleby. The original cupola was not restored.
The Gladstone Hotel is a unique urban hotel providing both travelers and Torontonians with a truly authentic experience of the local creative culture. Our historic landmark hotel features Artist Designed Hotel Rooms and Suites, Affordable Short-Term Artist Studios, Exhibition Spaces, and Versatile Event and Conference Venues. Visitors can experience Toronto from within the comforts of the hotel's thirty-seven artist designed guest rooms, attend art related, social, or corporate events held within the historic landmark architecture, and then step out into the heart of the city's vibrant art and design neighbourhood.
Not just a place to stay overnight! The Gladstone is more than a hotel. It is a place where local artists exhibit their work and perform and more importantly a place where artists and regular neighbourhood patrons come just to hang out. From cabaret performances to film screenings, art exhibitions to wedding parties the Gladstone hosts events for a vast range of artists, community groups, businesses and individuals.
The hotel is the venue for Salon Voltaire, a biweekly lecture series. Pairing academic speakers on wildly diverse topics, echoing a modern-day intellectual salon, the goal of the series is to facilitate an evening where sophisticated people come together to discuss art, politics and ideas that can change the world.
Its Melody Bar features two faux-marble pillars, which the hotel claims is unique in the city. The Gladstone Hotel regularly serves as a shooting location for film, TV, and videos.
