Monday, June 06, 2005

Lenore in the Mirror

This is from the Casa Loma castle in Toronto. Its huge. It was built around 1912, the man Henry Pellett and his wife Mary built it and only lived in it for 9 years. Then Henry's financial shennagans caught up with him- he had managed to get a 30 year contract with the city of Toronto to provide the electrical lighting for the city, but that got taken away when the contract came under public domain. Meanwhile, Henry had overleveraged himself using the contract holding to borrow huge amounts of money. The castle took 3 years to build, had stuff like an indoor pool, multiple bedrooms (it was a hotel for a few years after Henry and Mary had to vacate), plans for a bowling alley, a 800-ft underground tunnel to the stables (which were incredibly lavish, and not to be confused with the garage), and a room with intricately carved paneling which took 3 master craftsmen in England 3 years to carve, after which they were shipped off to ole Henry.
The brochure describes him as an "unabashed romatic"but I think he was probably Ken Lays mentor.
Paul took this wonderfully artistic photo in Lady Mary's sitting room. It is probably about the size of most of my upstairs in my house.
Too bad he never got to finish the bowling alley. There was a smoking room adjacent to the game room, which had a huge carved pool table imported from Italy. It was sold at auction.
The gardens were wonderful, and the views from the towers were awesome.
We had a bonus ride on the transit system. When we came out of the subway station, we got on a bus going the opposite direction from where we wanted to go. So we just got off after awhile, and crossed the street, and went back. since we had day passes, no more money needed. We saw WAAAAAAAY out in the 'burbs.
Today was HOT and windy, there were thunderstorms predicted, but no luck.


For breakfast (around 11am) we went to the Brown Stone bistro. Really good food, and really good sangria. We ordered just a glass each. The waitress asked if we wanted a pitcher, but we deferred. Well, the sangria was so good, and it was so hot, we ended up ordering another glass each. Puts a nice glow on a hot day.
Now we are off to find something for dinner.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm really enjoying your pictures, as well as your descriptions of your busy days in Toronto. Erika was pleased with her meeting at school and excited about going to Phoenix -- I'm sure she let you know that she arrived safely. She's a very good driver, and thinks I go 'way too slowly on the freeway!

Anonymous said...

Hallo broer en schoonzus wat maken jullie leuke tripjes.
Ja paul je bord met grolsch heb ik ook gezien leuk zeg.
En wat een mooie foto"s hebben jullie.
Groetjes je broer.