Wednesday, March 28, 2012

The Gladstone Hotel

When my friend Lorraine and I were strolling along Queen Street West last Sunday, we went into the Gladstone Hotel to have a look around. 


It's a restored hotel from the Victorian age, full of dark wood and unusual light fixtures. It even has an elaborate cage style elevator that needed an operator to take us up to the top (4th) floor. 

According to their website, the hotel was built in 1889 in the Romanesque Revival style and named after British Prime Minister William Gladstone (he was actually PM 4 times!).  There used to be a train station right across the street and the hotel was built on what was then the very western edge of the city.

Nowadays, the exterior beauty of the hotel remains, complete with very cool stone features, like these creatures carved under the windows:

There are 37 rooms and I was told each one is decorated in a unique fashion - check out some of the various designs here.  Each floor features artwork on display.  I found the hallways on each floor to be a little shabby looking (decorated with worn carpets and funky furniture that you'd find in a yard sale) but no doubt, the guest rooms make up for it.

Take this gorgeous chandelier, for example, it's timeless beauty slightly tarnished by the exposed pipe overhead.

But hey, who really cares about stuff like that, as long as everything else is clean and fun, which is definitely appears to be.

This was one of the public restrooms, too fabulous!

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