Casa Loma Private Tour

There is a castle on a hill in the middle of Toronto, with 98 rooms, secret passages, underground tunnels and a story of ambition and spectacular financial collapse. This private tour, with your expert guide and a separate SUV chauffeur if you choose one, heads north to the Davenport escarpment, where Casa Loma rises from the hill ahead.

It begins with Sir Henry Pellatt, the financier who made his fortune in electricity, hydropower and real estate and decided, in 1911, that Toronto needed a proper castle. Your guide tells the story as you move through the house: the Great Hall with its 18-metre ceiling, the hand-carved panelling of the Oak Room, the passageways hidden in the walls, the 240-metre tunnel to the carriage house and stables, and the towers with their views of the skyline.

Pellatt moved in with his wife Mary in 1914, and by 1923 he was bankrupt and the castle was lost. The tour closes outside, in the gardens she designed, with the escarpment views, Spadina House Museum next door and the stories of the neighbourhood that grew up around one of Toronto's most extraordinary addresses.