SIR HENRY’S HOME TRULY WAS HIS CASTLE

CANADIAN businessman Sir Henry Pellatt firmly believed in every man’s home being his castle, so when he and Lady Mary decided in 1912 on somewhere new to live, they had plans drawn up for just that – a castle.

He was not the least phased when his architect said he would first need to buy-up 25 hilltop housing lots overlooking Toronto to accommodate his castle, nor that it would take 300 men three years to put it together.

And as for the cost, that was no problem either: Sir Henry had a loose C$3,500,000 (about $40m in today’s terms) he’d put aside just for his house. Sorry, castle.

Today, as a result of Sir Henry falling on hard times just ten years after moving into his castle, inquisitive visitors can take themselves on a nostalgic tour of the Pellatt’s remarkable fairytale home.

They can marvel at its 98 Edwardian-era rooms that took 40 staff and cooks to maintain and service, a banquet hall with 18m high ceilings, secret passageways, artworks, a library that once housed 10,000 works, and a wine cellar that held more bottles than – no matter how diligent – most of us could never get through in a lifetime.

There’s also Lady Mary’s personal suite that alone covers 278 square metres, or nearly half an average housing block, and a secret passage from Sir Henry’s quarters that, according to legend, was there should he have need to slip away unnoticed...

Henry Pellatt was born into a wealthy Canadian stock-broking family in 1859, and as a young man made a fortune from the family company and his own investments in everything from railways to insurance companies and founding the Toronto Electric Light Company.

While he chaired the boards of 21 companies, he was also very active in the volunteer Canadian Queen’s Own Rifles, which earned him his knighthood; Lady Mary herself worked tirelessly with the Canadian Girl Guides receiving their highest honour, the Silver Fish.

The Pellatts moved into their castle in 1914 and named it Casa Loma, Spanish for The House on the Hill.

Because one of his investments was the Roman Stone Company, the castle had been built of replica ancient roman building blocks made of cast concrete, with foundations sunk 15m into the ground to support it.

A keen horseman, Sir Henry’s stables had each horse’s name displayed in gold leaf on their stall’s mahogany doors. And in case it rained, a 250m-long tunnel ran 6-metres under an outside roadway to link castle and stables.

Although designed externally along medieval lines, Casa Loma had some amazing mod-cons for its time, including showers with nozzles spraying from the top and all walls as well. And being keen gardeners the Pellatts had a conservatory and potting house with floors and walls of Italian and Canadian marble, topping it with a stained-glass dome that was backlit with 600 new-fangled electric light bulbs to show it off by night and day.

And to communicate through the castle’s labrynth of rooms and the outside world, a private 59-line private telephone exchange handled more calls in its early years than the entire City of Toronto.

But World War I hit Sir Henry hard, his stock crashed, companies folded and he and Lady Mary were forced to auction their furnishings for a pittance and abandon Casa Loma in 1924 for their small farm outside town; Lady Mary died later that year and Sir Henry in 1939.

The City of Toronto took over and restored the castle and it’s been run by the Kiwanis Club of Casa Loma since 1937 to fund castle maintenance and charitable projects. Its open daily, and the 2ha gardens from May to October; entry is C$16 for adults, C$10 seniors and youths, and C$8.75 for children.

For information about visiting Canada and Casa Loma, phone Canada & Alaska Holiday Specialists on 1300 79 49 59.