Home » Travel » Montreal » Ritz Carlton- Montréal's Historic Hotel

Ritz Carlton- Montréal's Historic Hotel

© Norman P. Goldman

One of Canada's most elegant, charming and oldest hotels is the Ritz Carlton located on the corner of Rue Sherbrooke Ouest and rue Drummond.

The hotel opened its doors on New Year's Eve in the year 1912 and according to a description appearing in the Montreal Gazette the next morning, "the spectacle was certainly a new one to Montreal, and the brilliance of it was reminiscent of Paris, and was living evidence of the fact that Montreal has become one of the world's important centres."

The "Ritz," as it is usually called, has catered to so many celebrities that it is practically impossible to keep track of all of them.

Some of the better known personalities have included the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Sir Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, the Shah of Iran, Arthur Rubinstein, Rita Hayworth, Charles Boyer, Linda Darnell, Glenn Ford, Catherine Deneuve, Gene Kelly, Paul Newman, Petula Clark, Burt Lancaster, John Wayne and far too many more to list. We certainly cannot forget that it was at the Ritz where Elizabeth Taylor married Richard Burton in 1964.

The Ritz began as a dream of four Montreal tycoons, Samuel Holt, Charles Blair Gordon, Montagu Allan, Charles Hosmer. These four gentlemen were very prominent among the residents who resided in Montreal's Golden Square Mile

It has been estimated that 70% of Canada's wealth was owned by a few hundred people who lived here during the late 19th Century to World War ll.

What these men envisaged was the creation of a hotel on behalf of friends and colleagues that would resemble a private club where they would be able to conduct their business affairs as well as entertain their guests.

They decided among themselves that the most effective way to proceed was to try and persuade a well-known hotelier by the name of César Ritz to lend his name to their venture.

César Ritz opened up the first of his Ritz hotels in 1898 in Paris, France.

When you stayed in any of his hotels you were assured of perfection. In fact the Ritz in Paris was the first hotel in the world where every room had a private toilet and bath!

Fortunately for the founders of the Montreal Ritz Carlton, César Ritz had agreed to permit these gentlemen to use his name, however, they were obliged to respect his preconditions.

Apart from the sum of $25,000.00 that he requested as a kind of fee, he insisted that the hotel building be suitable in the sense that it was in a choice locality.

The copyright of the article Ritz Carlton- Montréal's Historic Hotel in Montreal is owned by Norman P. Goldman. Permission to republish Ritz Carlton- Montréal's Historic Hotel in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.