Description of the attraction
The beautiful neo-Gothic castle Casa Loma is one of the most interesting attractions in Toronto, attracting a huge number of tourists every year. The castle was built at the beginning of the 20th century and is open to the public today.
In 1903, the famous Canadian financier Sir Henry Pellat, who has more than sufficient funds to build his dream home, acquired a plot of land near the center of Toronto with the poetic name Casa Loma, which means "house on a hill" in Spanish. The mansion was designed by the talented Canadian architect Edward Lennox, who also supervised the construction work.
Construction began in 1911. It took three years and about 3.5 million dollars for the main work to be mostly completed (some work had to be stopped in connection with the outbreak of the First World War). A huge mansion with 98 rooms and an area of more than 6,000 square meters, striking with both the splendor of the exterior and interior decoration, became the largest and most expensive private house of that time in Canada.
The crisis that began after the First World War thoroughly shook the financial stability of Henry Pellat, and in 1923 he was forced to sell Casa Lom. In 1925, under the direction of the architect William Sparling, the mansion was converted into a luxury hotel. Later, Casa Loma became the home of an elite nightclub, and already in 1933, due to the fact that the amount of unpaid taxes for the mansion exceeded $ 27,000, Casa Loma became the property of the city. For a long time, the city authorities could not decide how to best use this luxurious building, the maintenance of which was quite burdensome for the city budget. The proposal to demolish the building was seriously considered. Since 1937, Casa Loma has been used as a tourist attraction.
