Casa Loma

Did you know that there is a castle in Toronto? It's called Casa Loma which means "House on a Hill." It was built by Sir Henry Mill Pellatt, and was begun in 1911. While we were visiting the castle, we watched a film biography of Sir Pellatt that told the story of his rise to riches, his influence in the development of Canada, the construction of the castle, and his ruin. Before his death, Sir Pellatt was penniless, and he was forced to auction off all of his belongings, and the castle was deserted. Therefore, the Kiwanis Club opened the castle as a tourist attraction in 1937, and many of the original belongings that were not sold at auction are still in place. I was so impressed by the brief biography that we saw that I intend to find a more detailed book about this man and give it a good read. I really think that Kevin would find this man's life very interesting, too, so I'm going to have to get him to read it as well.

But, on to the castle. I'm sure you want to see pictures...

Self portrait in a castle

I did do the tourist thing and took a bunch of pictures of all of the rooms that were still furnished as they would have been. I wish my dining room was this large. (I will post all of my photos from the castle to an album later, so you can look forward to that, Mom!)

Some of the more interesting features of the castle included some secret stairways and hiding places that the boys really got a kick out of. I felt a little bit like I was in a real life game of clue when we were in the conservatory, and when we were taking the secret passage to the study. Fortunately, there was no lead pipe invovled.

Another cool feature that the kids really liked was the underground tunnel that connects the main castle to the stable, carriage house, garage and potting shed. As we were walking down the tunnel, Connor kept saying, "I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid." Which was cute because it was some sort of little game that he was playing.

The only room in the castle that I didn't care for was the bathroom. While I was very interested in the old fashioned shower, tub and toilet, the marble on the walls was hideous. When I move in, I'm going to have to update that bathroom!

We climbed and we climbed and we climbed staircase after much steeper staircase after twisty staircase until we reached the top of the turret. The view was nothing compared to that of the CN Tower, well except for the view of the CN Tower, but it was a great experience. It was also hot up there, as it wasn't air conditioned. And there was all that climbing to work up a sweat. But the boys did fine...until it was time to climb back down all those steep and twisty stairs.

At the top

I was in quite the pickle. In the end, I had to carry them down the stairs one at a time, pausing at each flight to go back and fetch the other one so that I could keep an eye on them both at the same time. (Yes, quite the workout.) A very nice old lady helped me by holding Lex's hand at the top of each flight of stairs while he was waiting for me to come back and get him. You know, just so he didn't fall. (I probably should have thought of this on the way up, but I didn't.)

There is quite a lot of property surrounding the castle, and the gardens are beautiful, so we took a stroll along some of the garden paths.


Okay, the boys mostly just played with sticks, but I fully admired the gardens, I assure you.

In the basement of the castle, near the gift shop and cafe, there are a bunch of movie posters hanging up, with information about scenes from each movie that was shot in the castle. And there were plenty! Scenes from two of my favorite movies were shot at the castle, and now I need to go back and watch Chicago and X-Men and see if I can recognize any parts of the castle in those movies.