Today when you take the ferry from Levis to Quebec City, the focal point that consumes the skyline is the majestic Château Frontenac. This impressive view was also accurate for Karl in 1899, and when describing his visit to Quebec City, he references the “large C.P.R. hotel as a magnificent structure.”

And, once again, dear reader, we also have a link to Mr. William Van Horne.

In Karl Chronicles #19, Horsepower and Megawatts, I shared an excerpt from the Truro Daily News where Karl described a construction project at Grand Falls attributed to a company that included Sir William Van Horne, President of the Canadian Pacific Railway (C.P.R). Then, in Karl Chronicles #21 Sidetracked at Minister’s Island, we learned more about Mr. Van Horne and his estate in New Brunswick that applied his experience in the design of Château Lake Louise in Alberta and Château Frontenac in Quebec City.

The Château Frontenac has expanded and changed since Karl viewed it in 1899, but given the significance of this hotel in our narrative, I decided to book a private tour and go behind the scenes for this Karl Chronicle.

I was greeted at the meeting point on the Dufferin Terrace by Jules Joseph Taschereau Frémont, the Mayor of Quebec City. No, not the current Mayor but the 22nd Mayor of Quebec City who served from 1890 to 1894 to welcome me to his city. I will admit to loving tours where the guides are both historians and actors. My tour guide excelled at both. Immaculately dressed in his three-piece suit and adorned with a top hat — on a sweltering July afternoon — Mayor Frémont led our small group through the Château’s history.

Van Horne chose the hotel’s location to entice elite travellers to stay at the lavish hotel, then venture on the C.P.R. rail across Canada to another city and hopefully another C.P.R. hotel. Construction of the hotel commenced in 1892 based on a design by American architect Bruce Price applying the “Châteauesque” style borrowing those elements from the Renaissance to include pitched roofs, elaborate towers and turrets, and ornate gables. Van Horne named the Château after Louis de Buade de Frontenac, the revered French soldier and Governor-General of New France in North America in the 1700s.

The first wing of the hotel opened in December of 1893 with 170 rooms, and over half of those rooms had the luxurious amenities of bathrooms and fireplaces. By the time Karl arrived in 1899, the second expansion had taken place, and the Citadelle wing opened, followed by another five additions in 1908, 1920, 1924, 1993 and most recently 2011.

If only the hotel walls could talk to share the conversations that occurred in the meeting room that held the Quebec Conferences of World War II, chaired by President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and Prime Minister Mackenzie King as they discussed invasion plans for Western Europe. Or the direction given to the actors by Alfred Hitchcock when he filmed portions of his movie I Confess at the hotel in 1953.

Van Horne’s vision of the Château Frontenac as a luxury hotel in 1893 is still the case today. Over the years, the hotel has welcomed guests from Charles Lindberg, Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco, Leonardo Dicaprio, Paul McCartney, Steven Spielberg and Charlie Chaplin. The Château Frontenac has dedicated suites to those most prominent guests who have visited, and you can opt to stay a night or more in the: Hitchcock Suite, Charles de Galle Suite, Churchill Suite, Celine Dion Suite, Roosevelt Suite, Elizabeth II Suite, the Frontenac Suite or the Van Horne Suite. Interestingly, the Van Horne Suite is one of the most expensive, around $3500 CAN per night, equal in price only to the Roosevelt Suite. By comparison, a standard room is about $350, and the Celine Dion suite is about $1500.

I quite like that the Van Horne suite is the most exuberant for the visionary who gave us one of our National Canadian treasures. I’d love to tell you that the Fairmont Hoteliers are avid readers of the Karl Chronicles and sponsored this GlobeTrotter one night in Van Horne’s Suite, but sadly this was not the case. I know that the Suite is almost the same size as my home, at 1464 sq. ft, with a master bedroom, a large dining room and a living room that provides a view of the St. Lawrence river. The Suite is adorned with art and photographs from those days of the C.P.R. railway expansion under the direction of Van Horne.

But all was not lost. After our tour, I inquired with Mayor Frémont if there was any accessible information about Van Horne, and he led me to the gallery of photographs in the lower levels of the hotel. The pictures that line the hallways depict the Château Frontenac throughout the years and the celebrated guests who stayed there. Including one framed portrait of the man with the vision that made it happen, Mr. William Cornelius Van Horne!

Today the Château Frontenac is a historic site of Canada and is said to be one of the world’s most photographed hotels. Over 600 rooms and over 2,000 windows with fantastic views of the St. Lawrence River and Quebec City. I don’t want to brag, but I have stayed at the Château Frontenac, back in 1985, on a Grade 8 school trip to the historic city. I don’t have any great photos of the places we visited in Quebec or the hotel or my room. But I have a photograph taken of me in the hotel hallway with a classmate and our matching chic outfits looking very much like the high fashioned elite traveller that Van Horne envisioned the Château Frontenac.

But if you don’t get a chance to spend a night in our famous Canadian hotel, consider booking a tour, and you’ll learn all sorts of gems about the Hotel. I don’t want to give away all of Mayor Frémont’s insider information, but I’ll share three fun facts from our adventure behind the scenes at the Château Frontenac:

If you went jogging in the hotel, you’d find a total of 12 kilometres of hallways.
The executive chef collects over 650 litres of honey every year from 4 hives in the Château’s private rooftop garden.
If you look in your Canadian passport (page 24), you’ll find a picture of Le Château Frontenac.