< CANADA | QUEBEC CITY: Fairmont Le Château Frontenac

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For more than a century, Fairmont Le Château Frontenac luxury hotel in Quebec City has been the true-life castle of many people's dreams. Everyone from the young to the old, music to film stars, sports personalities to political figures, enjoys discovering this unique Quebec City luxury resort and delights in returning again and again.

In the late 19th century, William Van Horne, General Manager of Canadian Pacific (CP) Railway, began building the hotel as the ideal stopover for CP travelers. Van Horne retained the services of New York architect Bruce Price (father of Emily Post), who had already designed Montreal's Windsor Station. Drawing on the architectural styles of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Price immortalized the history of the two great powers that had occupied Quebec City's highest promontory.

The years leading up to 1993 saw many expansion projects to fashion the Quebec City luxury hotel into what it is today, including the Citadelle construction in 1899, Mont-Carmel construction in 1908, and the Saint-Louis and Tour Centrale in 1920 and 1924. A new expansion phase was completed in June 1993 with the inauguration of the Claude-Pratte Wing, which offers guests a superb indoor pool, a physical fitness center and a magnificent outdoor terrace.

Fairmont Le Château Frontenac owes its name to a flamboyant French governor called Louis de Buade, Count of Frontenac, who guided the destiny of New France from 1672 to 1698. Frontenac's coat-of-arms can be seen on the outside wall of the entry arch and many other areas within the hotel. History casts a long architectural line: a 300-year-old stone bearing the Cross of Malta emblem is among the interior stones of the hotel's vaulted lobby.

Countless personalities have graced Fairmont Le Château Frontenac with their presence, including King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, Princess Grace of Monaco, Chiang-Kai-Shek, Charles de Gaulle, Ronald Reagan, François Mitterrand, Prince Andrew, Lady Sarah Ferguson, Charles Lindberg, Alfred Hitchcock and Montgomery Clift. In 1944, Fairmont Le Château Frontenac became the action center of the Quebec Conferences of World War II, which involved U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King.

Today, Fairmont Le Château Frontenac luxury hotel in Quebec stands even taller over Cap Diamant, ready as always to welcome friends from around the world to its elegant and pleasant surroundings.

Additional literature:

#France Gagnon-Pratte: Chateau Frontenac: One Hundred Years in the Life of a Legendary Hotel
Editions Continuite, 1999 | ISBN-10: 2922527042; ISBN-13: 978-2922527049
English language | 102 pages | Paperback

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