In Quebec City there is the Fairmont Chateau Frontenac Hotel and there is everything else. It’s a grand hotel in the 19th Century tradition. It dominates the Quebec City landscape from the center of the upper city overlooking the St. Lawrence River inside Quebec’s walls and can be seen throughout the city. It’s a symbol of Quebec.
The strategic value of the site of the hotel was noted when the city was first planned. Samuel de Champlain built a fort on the site where the hotel is located. It was started in 1620, rebuilt in 1626 and contained Champlain’s living quarters and those of his sentries. When the first Governor of New France arrived in 1636 he began further construction and named the fort, Chateau St. Louis.
The Chateau St. Louis lasted until January 25, 1834, when it burned to the ground. Although deprived of its Chateau for many years there were numerous plans to build something on the site. In 1890 the city commissioned architects Ross and Tilden to create plans for a prestigious hotel on the site. They designed the Fortress Hotel in the manner of the chateaux of the Loire valley in France. This hotel was not carried out for lack of funds.
In 1893 building began on the Chateau Frontenac. It was named after the Comte de Frontenac, one of the early governors of New France. He was immortalized by having the new hotel named after him. The silhouette of the Chateau Frontenac is symbolic of Canada to Canadians even though it was built by an English Architect with interiors by English Canadians. Additionally, it was to become the visual symbol of Quebec City—the cradle of French civilization in the new world.
In 1892 the Chateau Frontenac Company was formed in order to buy the property and build a luxury hotel on the site of the Chateau St. Louis. Originally it was to have been a contemporary structure, but plans drawn up by Bruce Price, the American architect, based on a Renaissance Chateau, were so magnificent that the Chateau Frontenac Company decided to select them.
Bruce Price drew his inspiration from the Chateaux of France’s Loire valley. He said about the Chateau Frontenac, “The hotel is placed in the center of a big landscape, and hence needs every advantage of bigness, both from the materials and from the simplicity of its designs.”
When the hotel opened on December 18, 1893, the “Quebec Morning Chronicle” reported: “Beyond the shadow of a doubt, the finest hotel site in the world is occupied by the Chateau Frontenac. Once in the vestibule the visitor is at once struck with the beauty of the mosaic stone flooring and the richness of the woodwork and mural decorations.”
The hotel was the first stop on the Canadian Pacific’s route across Canada to the Orient. The hotel had one hundred seventy rooms all of them with open fireplaces and ninety three had private bathrooms with marble fixtures, a major innovation at the time.
The hotel was an enormous success right from the start. Two more wings were added to the Chateau, and shortly another wing was added, which made the Chateau the largest hotel in the country at the time.
Early room prices were “Room without Bath $4.50-$5.50 Room with Bath $5.50-$8.00.”
During the Second World War there were several important conferences of the leaders of Canada, the USA and Britain. After the Atlantic and Casablanca conferences there were two important conferences held in Quebec City in 1943 and 1944. They were known at the Quebec Conferences and held at the Chateau Frontenac. The conferences were attended by MacKenzie King, Prime Minister of Canada, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. They planned the D-day invasion of France at the Chateau.
Perhaps the best response to the setting for the conferences was given by Winston Churchill, "Certainly no more fitting and splendid setting could have been chosen for a meeting for those who guide the war policy of the two great western democracies at this cardinal moment in the second world war than we have here in the Plains of Abraham, in the Chateau Frontenac and the ramparts of the Citadel of Quebec from which I speak to you now.”
The list of the rich and famous who have stayed at the Chateau is endless and need not be repeated here. The hotel has never had a lull in its popularity. It has continued to the present day. Several years ago the hotel was purchased by the Fairmont Hotel Corporation and it is now known as the Fairmont Chateau Frontenac. The same quality of service has remained constant at the Chateau.
I recently visited Quebec City and stayed at the Chateau Frontenac. It was a wonderful experience. I had occasion to test the service and was not disappointed. At dinner one night I spilled grease on my tie and needed to get it cleaned. The concierge sent a bellman to my room, picked up the tie and it was returned perfectly cleaned and ready to wear the next day. I was impressed. High quality attention still prevails at the Fairmont Chateau Frontenac.
