Guild Inn Estates - Toronto, ON
N 43° 44.858 W 079° 11.533
17T E 645551 N 4845432
A hidden gem in Scarborough
Waymark Code: WM5D2J
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 12/20/2008
Views: 23
The Guild Inn, and Guildwood park has quite the history. You should budget a couple hours to explore the grounds, and particularly the sculpture park near the Inn which features facades and sculptures relocated here from other parts of Toronto.
From the Wikipedia Entry:
The Guild Inn is an historic hotel in Guildwood, a neighbourhood of Scarborough, Ontario. Built in 1914 as Ranelagh Park for Colonel Harold Child Bickford. The Georgian-style home has 33 rooms.
In 1921, the home was sold to the Foreign Missionary Society of the Roman Catholic Church and renamed China Mission College. It was soon abandoned and remained so until 1932, when it was purchased by Rosa Breithaupt Hewetson of the Hewetson Shoes Company fame. Ms. Hewetson married Herbert Spencer Clark and continued to reside in home and added status as a museum. During World War II, it became The Guild of All Arts.
Additions were added in 1941 to 1942, then it was ceded to the federal government as a military hospital and renamed HMCS Bytown II by the Women's Royal Naval Service or WRENS.
After the war, it remained as a hospital for nervous disorders and renamed as Scarborough Hall.
By 1947, the federal government returned the home to the Clarks and re-established as the Guild of All Arts. But the Clarks' stay was short and they sold the home to the municipal government of Metro Toronto in 1953.
A 6 storey 100 room east wing was added in 1965 and other renovations completed in 1968. A minor ownership change saw the inn handed over to the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority in 1978.
In 1993, control over the run down property returned back to the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. The park and the property was used for private functions, namely for wedding photo shoots. By 2001, the Hotel and restaurant was closed, but Guildwood Park remains open to the public.
In September 2008, the City of Toronto approved a plan for Centennial College to create a Hotel, Restaurant, and Conference Centre on the site, as well as to house their Cultural and Heritage Institute.
The City also has contracted to remove the 1965 hotel tower in January of 2009, in preparation for the new development.
In 2006, Artscape, a non-profit enterprise that builds creative communities and expands knowledge about the dynamics of creative places, worked on a strategy for a cultural precinct for the Guild Inn site. The City of Toronto has expressed interest in having Artscape develop and manage the cultural precinct portion of the site.
More concrete plans came, however, in September 2008, when the city approved a plan by Centennial College to operate a hotel, restaurant, and conference centre on the site for use in the school's hospitality courses, as well as to act as a location to house the college's Cultural and Heritage Institute. Though a fire on December 25, 2008 destroyed The Studio, preparations for Centennial's development continued, and the city in January 2009 approved the demolition of the hotel tower. Centennial College eventually abandoned the plan to renovate the Inn as too costly. A second plan proposed by Centennial College to demolish the inn and build student housing was rejected.
In 2013, the Toronto Star reported that the park was in a state of decay with sculptures eroding and some plaques missing. The Heritage Canada Foundation characterized the park's situation as one of "demolition by neglect". A volunteer group, Friends of Guild Park and Gardens, was formed that year with a goal to protect the park and inn. That year, the City of Toronto approved the selection of Dynamic Hospitality and Entertainment Group to design, build, finance and operate a new restaurant and banquet/event centre at the Guild Inn site.
In 2014, the City of Toronto developed a management plan for the hotel, park and gardens. While this was done, the development proposal was under review. This completed in 2015 and it was announced that the Guild Inn would re-open as a special events venue operated by Dynamic Hospitality and Entertainment Group Inc. under the terms of a forty-year lease of the property. The original hotel would be renovated and two new "event spaces" would be added. The project was expected to cost CA$16 million, with 5 million coming from the City of Toronto. The refurbished Guild Inn and meetings venue opened in May 2017.
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