Château Montebello
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The Château Montebello is a hotel in Montebello, Quebec, Canada, renown for reportedly being the world's largest log "cabin".
In the late 1920s, H.M. Saddlemire, a Swiss-American entrepreneur, acquired a site along the Ottawa River, on land that formerly formed part of the seigniory of Louis-Joseph Papineau. Saddlemire envisioned a private wilderness retreat for business and political leaders, and dubbed his project "Lucerne-in-Quebec" (later renamed the Seigniory Club). Despite the 1929 stockmarket crash, construction of the club was able to commence in early 1930. The economic uncertainty did not delay the project, as it did so many others, due perhaps to the fact that the presidents of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the National Bank of Canada, the Bank of Montreal and the Royal Bank of Canada respectively, not to mention the Premier of Quebec, were all club directors. A special spur from the nearby CPR line had to be built to allow for the transport of logs and other supplies to the site. Given the use of Scandinavian log construction techniques and an army of three thousand labourers, construction progressed at an incredible pace and the club's grand opening was held on July 1, 1930.
The centrepiece of the new log-château was a hexagonal rotunda, containing a six-sided stone fireplace that rose more than 20 metres (66 feet) to the roof, soaring rafters featuring logs 18 metres (60 feet) long, and two mezzanines that completely encircled the rotunda. The 186 guest rooms were contained in four wings that fanned out from the rotunda, with additional wings for the dining room and the ballroom. The newly constructed buildings on the site contained 10,000 logs, 500,000 hand-slit cedar roof shakes and 166 kilometres of wooden moulding. [link]
The club was an architectural marvel, and as intended, it drew a prestigious guest list, which included Prime Ministers and Governor Generals, Crown Prince Akihito of Japan, Harry Truman, Prince Ranier and Princess Grace of Monaco, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Bette Davis, and Joan Crawford.
Canadian Pacific Hotels purchased the club in 1970 and opened it to the public as a resort. Despite the new hotel's long history as a private club, the involvement of the CPR in the resort's construction and the proximity to the CPR line (which had contributed significantly to the club's success over the past decades) made it a natural fit among the country's railway hotels.
In 1981, the Château Montebello played host to the G7 economic summit, and leaders such as Pierre Trudeau, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and François Mitterrand were guests of the hotel.
In 1999, Canadian Pacific Hotels renamed itself Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, borrowing the name of a company it had recently acquired. Fairmont continues to operate the Château Montebello, and the hotel's main architectural features remain virtually unaltered since 1930.
References
- Chisholm, Barbara, ed., Castles of the North: Canada's Grand Hotels, Toronto: Lynx Images, 2001. (ISBN 1-894073-14-2)
- Muir, Allan and Doris, Building the Chateau Montebello, Gardenvale, Quebec: Muir Publishing Company, 1990. (ISBN 0-919231-00-4)
External link
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