The Guild Inn - Guildwood, Ontario
N 43° 44.873 W 079° 11.532
17T E 645552 N 4845459
An old hotel in Toronto, now one of Toronto's premier Event and Reception Centres.
Waymark Code: WM5CQK
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 12/19/2008
Views: 56
The hotel was built in 1914 and closed in 2001 after the business failed and was taken over by the City of Toronto. But, has everyone left?
This hotel is very well known to photography enthusiasts across southern Ontario due to the sculpture garden with the relocated building facades located behind the hotel. This is a very interesting location and you will want to budget extra time to explore the grounds. There is a lot of history here.
NOTE: After being on "death row" following its closure in 2001, the historic inn, slated for demolition as recently as 2011, has experienced a total renaissance. Completed in 2017, the Guild Inn Estates is now once again one of Toronto's premier Reception and wedding centres. An in-depth article from the Toronto Star may be found here:
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"What I am now about to relate is not a historical fact as I have not found proof but I fully believe in the sincerity of my grandmother, and there are some strange quirks that just don't add up. My grandmother worked at the Guild Inn in the 1960's as a banquet waitress. She was told by the long time employees, who had worked there shortly after the war, that the government had created a tunnel from the Scarborough Bluffs to access the main building, which was some distance away. I believe this may have been done for soldiers coming down the St. Lawerence river and into Lake Ontario. There was also rumours that experiments may have been conducted in these tunnels during the war as well. These tunnels were constructed during the war, as the building only started out as a few rooms in the basement, and the original blueprints do not show them. I have used these tunnels myself when I was employed there to transfer back and forth between the main level and the downstairs banquet facilities.I have seen bricked off doorways that may hold that secret passage to access more tunnels.
I have been completely alone in the hotel and felt as if I was being watched through the shadows and followed through the narrow corridors. My mother had worked there for about 20 years and experienced many strange things.
There was a small mansion at the edge of the Bluffs called Cory Cliff which was built in 1912. Cory Cliff was used as a meeting facility in which my mother would set up for early in the mornings. She would hear loud footsteps walking upstairs over her head, knowing she was completely alone, she would still go and investigate the source. She never found anyone. Things continued to happen, such as toilets flushing on their own, doors slamming, taps would turn on by themselves. There was a secret passage way that was hidden behind a bookshelf but as you tried to enter the passage it became a brick wall. From what I have heard, the passage way was suppose to lead to the basement.My mother would leave the building at night knowing she had turned off every single light, to have them all turn on simultaneously when she was outside walking away from the building. "