The Contributors to “Casa Loma: Millionaires, Medievalism, and Modernity in Toronto’s Gilded Age”

Nominated for the Stephen A. Otto Award for Research and Documentation

This publication is the first concerted attempt to fully explore Casa Loma’s architectural and social history, resulting in the first scholarly book dedicated to this Toronto and Canadian landmark. Across ten chapters, the collection of essays considers the building’s context on the Davenport ridge as one of several elite residences and traces the history of Casa Loma from the purchase of the estate atop Davenport Ridge in 1903 and its construction beginning in 1906, through to the sale and the dispersal of its contents in 1924, its subsequent life as a hotel, and finally its transformation into one of the city’s major museum sites and entertainment venues. Having faced many conservation struggles over the years, the publication concludes with a chapter devoted to its preservation, providing insight into the safeguarding of our heritage.

The collaborative project brings to light a wealth of hitherto unpublished archival images and documentation of the edifice’s visual, material, and social culture, weaving together a textured account of the design, use, and life of this unique historic building that is known throughout the province. Leading Edwardian-era architect Edward James Lennox designed Casa Loma for Sir Henry Pellatt and his wife Mary (Lady Pellatt) as an enormous castellated mansion that overlooked the booming metropolis of Toronto. During and after the Pellatts’ occupation, Casa Loma became a major landmark, and it has since infiltrated the iconography and collective memory of the province. The reception of Casa Loma, variously loved and abhorred by Torontonians, reflects many of Toronto’s major aspirations and anxieties about itself as a modern city.

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