The Four Seasons Hotel and Residences Toronto is a complex consisting of a 204-metre, 55-storey

residential condominium A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership regime in which a building (or group of buildings) is divided into multiple units that are either each separately owned, or owned in common with exclusive rights of occupation by individual owne ...

tower and a 125-meter, 30-storey

luxury hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

tower in the Yorkville district of

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, Canada, which opened on October 5, 2012. Located at 60 Yorkville Avenue, at its intersection with

Bay Street Bay Street is a major thoroughfare in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the centre of Toronto's Financial District and is often used by metonymy to refer to Canada's financial services industry since succeeding Montreal's St. James Stree ...

, the complex is situated one block east of the former

Four Seasons Hotel Toronto The Four Seasons Hotel and Residences Toronto is a complex consisting of a 204-metre, 55-storey residential condominium tower and a 125-meter, 30-storey luxury hotel tower in the Yorkville district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which opened on O ...

building at 21 Avenue Road. The 55-floor complex contains 259 hotel rooms and 210 private condominium units in addition to a two-storey spa, Café Boulud and bar (by international

restaurateur A restaurateur is a person who opens and runs restaurants professionally. Although over time the term has come to describe any person who owns a restaurant, traditionally it refers to a highly skilled professional who is proficient in all aspec ...

and chef

Daniel Boulud Daniel Boulud (born 25 March 1955 in Saint-Pierre-de-Chandieu) is a French chef and restaurateur with restaurants in New York City, Palm Beach, Miami, Toronto, Montréal, Singapore, the Bahamas, the Berkshires and Dubai. He is best known for h ...

), and glass-enclosed event spaces. It was designed by

architectsAlliance architectsAlliance is a Toronto-based architectural firm headed by architect Peter Clewes. It was formed in 1999 with the merger of Wallman Clewes Bergman (composed of Rudy Wallman, Peter Clewes and Ralph Bergman) and Van Nostrand DiCastri Arch ...

, with

Page and Steele Page + Steele, formerly known as Page and Steele, is an architecture partnership created in 1926 by Forsey Pemberton B. Page (1885–1970) and W. Harland Steele (1900–1996) in Toronto, Ontario. It is now part of the IBI Group of architectural and ...

as Architect of Record. The project was developed by Bay-Yorkville Developments Ltd. (a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

of Alcion Ventures, LP, Menkes Developments Ltd., and Lifetime Homes), and it uses the "Four Seasons" trademark under licence. The taller tower was initially the 10th tallest building in Toronto, but by 2017, its position had fallen to 17th as other taller buildings were completed. The site had previously been the Bay Ford Lincoln

car dealership A car dealership, or car dealer, is a business that sells new or used cars, at the retail level, based on a dealership contract with an automaker or its sales subsidiary. Car dealerships also often sell spare parts and automotive maintena ...

, and it is next door to

Toronto Fire Services Toronto Fire Services (TFS) provides fire protection, technical rescue services, hazardous materials response, and first responder emergency medical assistance in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Toronto Fire Services is currently the largest municipal ...

Station 312. The penthouse, which occupies the entire 55th floor of the West Residence was sold for C$28 million in 2012, making it the most expensive condominium unit sold in Canada. Before the

ribbon-cutting An opening ceremony, grand opening, or ribbon-cutting ceremony marks the official opening of a newly-constructed location or the start of an event.

ceremony,

Four Seasons Hotels Four Seasons Hotels Limited, trading as Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, is an international luxury hotel and resort company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Four Seasons currently operates more than 100 hotels and resorts worldwide.Da ...

chairman and founder Isadore Sharp proclaimed the new location as being "...in a category by itself, a true Four Seasons in our hometown, our flagship hotel. It is a landmark development for the city of Toronto".

History

The Four Seasons Motor Hotel

The first Four Seasons-operated hotel in Toronto was The Four Seasons Motor Hotel, opened in 1961 at 415 Jarvis Street near Carlton. Built by architect

Peter Dickinson Peter Malcolm de Brissac Dickinson OBE FRSL (16 December 1927 – 16 December 2015) was an English author and poet, best known for children's books and detective stories. Dickinson won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association ...

, it operated as a motor inn before it was demolished and replaced by townhouses.

Inn on the Park

The next hotel operated by Four Seasons was the

Inn on the Park Inn on the Park was a luxury hotel which was formerly located on a hill overlooking Leslie Street and Eglinton Avenue in North York, Ontario (now Toronto). It was one of the early Toronto hotels operated by the Four Seasons Hotel chain. History ...

, which opened in 1963. It became a Holiday Inn in the 1980s, and has since been demolished and replaced by the Lexus on the Park car dealership.

Four Seasons Sheraton Hotel

The Four Seasons Sheraton Hotel opened in 1972 as a joint venture between Four Seasons founder Issy Sharp and Sheraton. Unhappy with the partnership, Sharp sold his 49 percent interest in the hotel in 1976 for $18.5 million, and the hotel was renamed The Sheraton Centre of Toronto.

Four Seasons Hotel Toronto

The longest-operating Four Seasons property in the city was located on 21 Avenue Road at the intersection with Yorkville Avenue. It consisted of a 31-storey

Brutalist Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by Minimalism (art), minimalist constructions th ...

concrete tower, with a low-rise podium that stretched south to Cumberland Avenue. It was built in 1972 as the Hyatt Regency Toronto. Issy Sharp bought the hotel in 1978 and renamed it the Four Seasons Hotel Toronto. The hotel was popular with celebrities when the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...

was centred on the Yorkville area. However Sharp said the building "felt like driving into a garage." The hotel closed on March 28, 2012 and was sold to developer Camrost-Felcorp, which converted it to a condominium development known as Yorkville Plaza. The hotel's facade was renovated, while the podium containing the hotel function rooms, driveway and below-grade retail was demolished and replaced by a new retail complex.

Composition

There is a penthouse at the top. Finnish businessman Robert Oesterlund and his ex-wife Sarah Pursglove bought the penthouse for $28 million in 2012. The penthouse was designed by Brian Gluckstein.

References

External links

Four Seasons Hotel Toronto websitearchitectsAlliance project pageFour Seasons Hotel and Private Residences
at ''Emporis'' * {{Toronto skyscrapers Residential skyscrapers in Toronto Skyscraper hotels in Canada Condo hotels in Canada Modernist architecture in Canada Hotels in Toronto Four Seasons hotels and resorts 2012 establishments in Ontario Hotels established in 2012 Shahid Khan