Christmas At the Castle

Did you know that Toronto’s Casa Loma is one of only 5 authentic castles in North America? I couldn’t think of a better place to share a Christmas outing with my 2 grand daughters than this grand old lady. But the visit was not without its challenges.

Casa Loma was built by Sir Henry Pellatt in 1914 for his wife, and it cost him 3.4 Million dollars – over 100 years ago. This is one expensive house. Its amenities include 98 rooms, many with attached bathrooms, also towers, stables and secret passageways. You may wonder where Pellatt got all that money. Well he figured out that his contemporary, Thomas Edison, was onto something with his study of electricity, and Pellatt quickly developed the idea for a hydro-electric generating station in Niagara Falls. The rest, as they say, is history.

Both Agnes and Sophie seemed intrigued by the idea of visiting the castle, poking around, and having lunch there. So we chose a Saturday. I studied the subway maps and arranged for us to meet at the Bloor Yonge station and take line 1 on the west side to Dupont Station. Then we would climb 110 steps up to the castle. Easy-Peasy. But, as the date got closer, I began to have nightmares about those steps. It would be sooo embarrassing when the girls bounded up those steps, leaving me behind struggling to breathe.

On the day of our trip, Sophie texted to say that she was sick with a bad cold and couldn’t join us. So Agnes and I carried on without her. Except we couldn’t carry on because the subway service had been cancelled on the line that we needed. We had to re-route to the Yonge subway and then take a streetcar across St. Clair Ave to Spadina. This change was fine with me – it had NO steps!

First we ate lunch in the castle cafeteria which was not quite up to castle standards. We had both worn our better clothes, that is to say, no jeans, and we were a little overdressed. The waiters wore sweat pants and elf hats. There was no linen, no silverware, and definitely no candelabra. The food was good enough but the service was slow and we had plenty of time to study the castle map. Agnes wanted to see the great hall and the library first.

The library was closed to the public and the great hall was dwarfed by the great tree. So we made our way up the grand staircase to check out the bedrooms. We saw that they all had fireplaces, not very efficient for heating the second floor of an old stone building. We also noticed that the Pellatts and their families must have been very short to have slept in the beds. Agnes grimaced as she imagined her legs dangling from the knees down, over the footboard.

We visited Sir Henry’s bedroom and admired his shower stall – an early version of a shower one might find at a wellness spa today. But we wondered why Sir Henry’s suite was not adjoining Lady Mary’s suite? In fact, it was in an entirely different hallway. Her bathroom was quite different from his and had an early version of a French bidet. Both bedrooms had huge separate dressing rooms: Sir Henry’s for his army uniforms of the Queen’s Own Rifle Brigade. Lady Mary’s dressing room held uniforms from her time volunteering for the Girl Guides. Maybe they were too busy with their volunteer work to have any time for each other.

In the upstairs hallway was the 2nd floor phone. Agnes stared in disbelief and tried to imagine hanging onto the receiver apparatus while speaking into the microphone attached to the table. “How do you facetime on that thing?” she asked. On the third floor we bypassed a lot of history of the 2nd World War as Agnes made a bee-line for the tiny steel staircase leading up to the top of one of the towers. I waited for her at the bottom.

Then we decided we had had enough of castle-ing. I think Agnes wanted to get back to the 21st century because we ignored the stables and she didn’t even mention the gift shop. We climbed back on the streetcar and then said goodbye as we transferred to different subways. Agnes got home quickly and safely. I think we both felt that, while the castle might be a little outdated, our time together had been totally worthwhile.

But my adventure was not quite over. At my 3rd subway stop the conductor told us that service was interrupted for the next 5 stops, due to a security incident. Then came the words no subway rider ever wants to hear: “Shuttle busses will be running.”

As I walked along Bloor St. I couldn’t help thinking that I’d happily hitch a ride in the Pellatt’s horse and buggy if they happened to come along.

Sue