History
The hotel was designed by Chicago architect Henry Ives Cobb and Toronto architect E.J. Lennox for developer George Gooderham's Toronto Hotel Company, and was granted its name by namesake King Edward VII. It opened in 1903.
After a number of years of decline, the hotel was restored in 1981 by Stanford Downey Architects Inc. At the top of the hotel is the rarely-used Crystal Ballroom, that was added onto the hotel in 1921 and used until the late 1950s. The Ballroom, once the most fashionable in the city, was not restored in the 1980s with the rest of the hotel.
Notable dignitaries and luminaries housed in the hotel have been Mark Twain, Rudolph Valentino, Louis Armstrong, Elvis Presley, Margaret Thatcher, Britney Spears, and Ernest Hemingway who had lived in the hotel for a period. The Beatles stayed at the hotel's royal suite during their first visit to Toronto, in 1964, and caused the hotel's biggest commotion to date, when 3,000 fans packed the streets and flooded the lobby. In 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono stayed in the same royal suite a day before their bed-in for peace began. In February 1964, "moralists picketed" when Liz Taylor and Richard Burton stayed in a suite together; they were not married to one another at the time, causing a scandal.
The King Eddie has not only housed film stars but also film sets, from the mellow, Leonard Cohen’s 1983 musical I am a Hotel, to the melodramatic, Jamie Foxx’s film Bait, which, during a stunt mishap, caused an explosion that shook the building and shattered windows.
The King Edward Hotel was previously owned by Lehman Brothers Bank, through their real estate investment arm. In March 2010, a Toronto developer purchased the King Edward for $53 Million dollars with the intent of fully renovating the hotel. They also plan to build condos on the third, fourth and fifth floors, which have been vacant and unused for the past twenty years. The hotel was a part of the Le Meridien chain for many years, but left in July 2012 as these renovations neared completion.
The hotel is the location of an historical plaque placed by the Ontario Heritage Trust.
Read more about this topic: King Edward Hotel (Toronto)
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