Abbott's Guide to Ottawa and Vicinity/Chateau Laurier

by George F. Abbott

 

CHATEAU LAURIER.

When the Chateau Laurier, named after the Right Honourable Sir Wilfrid Laurier, G.C.M.G., late Premier of Canada, built by the Grand Trunk Railway, at a cost of over $1,500,000, is completed, Ottawa will be the proud possessor of the most magnificent hotel in Canada, and one of the finest hotels in America. It is situated in the south-western corner of the historic Major's Hill Park, where Colonel Bolton, of the staff of Colonel By, lived in the days of old Bytown, and commands magnificent views of the Parliament Buildings, the Rideau Canal, the Gatineau and Ottawa valleys, and the grand old Laurentian Hills.

An old style of French architecture has been used for the Chateau Laurier, and it is built of granite and light buff Indiana sandstone with copper roof. It contains 350 bedrooms; all are outside rooms, and two-thirds of them have private baths.

On the main floor are the office, rotunda, ladies' reception room, dining room, and dining room corridor, also café, lounge, and palm room; the latter will be used as a tea room. The ladies, and general writing rooms, are on the mezzanine floor, and the foyer, banquet room and state apartments are on the first floor.

In the basement are the grill room, bar room, barber shop, manicuring parlors, and public lavatories.

The second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth floors have each 53 bedrooms, and in selecting the furnishings for these rooms, the thought of making them home-like is evident.

On each floor, particularly well located rooms will be furnished in an especially attractive manner for parlor bedroom suites.

The corridors are divided into sections by means of fire doors to separate them in an emergency, although the hotel is absolutely fire-proof, no wood, except frames for doors and baseboards, being used in its construction. The main corridors lead directly to fire escapes, iron balconies and stairways inside the building. All the windows and service floors will be screened with the best Canadian-made fly screens, and a special refrigerating room will be provided to freeze the garbage until it is removed from the building.

The kitchen and its equipment will be equal to the best on the American continent. An especial refrigeration system will be installed and an ice plant added to furnish the hotel and station with artificial ice made from distilled water, sterilized by an effective method to provide pure drinking water for the guests.

The hotel laundry, with all the latest improved machinery for doing guest's work, is in the sub-basement. All the power for lighting and heating steam for kitchen and laundry, ice and refrigeration, is supplied the hotel by its own plant in the rear of the station, 400 yards from the hotel, so that the usual vibration from the machinery located within the building will not be felt. The hotel is also connected with the Central Union Station by means of a subway at the foot of the main stairway.

VISTA OF A PORTION OF THE CITY OF OTTAWA, SHOWING "CHATEAU LAURIER," OF THE GRAND TRUNK RAILWAY HOTEL SYSTEM AND THE NEW GRAND TRUNK PASSENGER STATION.