About Casa Loma

My work recently held our annual Christmas Party at the Casa Loma (Spanish for Hill House), a Gothic Revival style house located in midtown Toronto. It is now a major attraction and a popular museum. It was originally a residence for financier Sir Henry Mill Pellatt and was constructed over a three-year period from 1911-1914.

In 1903 Sir Henry Pellatt purchased 25 lots from developers Kertland and Rolf. Sir Henry commissioned Canadian architect E.J. Lennox to design Casa Loma with construction beginning in 1911, starting with the massive stables, potting shed and Hunting Lodge (a.k.a. coach-house) a few hundred feet north of the main building. The Hunting Lodge is a two storey 4,380-square-foot (407 m²) house with servant’s quarters. As soon as the stable complex was completed, Sir Henry sold his summer house in Scarborough to his son and moved to the Hunting Lodge. The stables were used as a construction site for the castle (also served as the quarters for the men servants), with some of the machinery still remaining in the rooms under the stables. The house cost approximately $3.5 million and took a team of 300 workers three years to build from start to finish. Unfortunately, due to the start of World War I, construction on the house was halted. At 98 rooms, it was the largest private residence in Canada. Notable amenities included an elevator, an oven large enough to cook an ox, two vertical passages for pipe organs, central vacuum, two secret passages in Sir Henry’s ground-floor office and three bowling alleys (never completed). – Source: Wikipedia

The Casa Loma is a beautiful sight and not far from Downtown Toronto and should be seen both during the day and night. It’s close to Dupont station and is an easy walk too. It’s located at 1 Austin Terrace, Toronto, Ontario, M5R 1X8, Canada

Source: Flickr

I didn’t get a chance to take any photos inside but it was gorgeous. Luckily a coworker of mine went around to all the tables and took photos of everybody so here’s my table. Two of the guys from my team brought their gfs, two didn’t, one guy didn’t come and so we were lucky to have Kate on our table who brought her bf. =)

The food was fantastic and the service was impeccable. In all – it was a great event.

Merry Christmas everybody.