What Happened to the Inn on the Park? The Complete Story

In 1963, a resort opened on a hill at Leslie and Eglinton: sixteen acres surrounded by six hundred acres of parkland, with pools, tennis courts, a health club, and one of Canada's first discotheques. It was called the Inn on the Park, and it was the hotel that turned Isadore Sharp's company into Four Seasons. It was part of a wave. Between 1962 and 1963, more than a thousand hotel rooms opened across Metropolitan Toronto, such as the Canadiana in Scarborough, the Constellation on Dixon Road, the Valhalla in Etobicoke. They were full-service motor hotels built for business travellers arriving by car on Toronto's new expressways. Then Torontonians started booking them for weekends. This is the story of how Toronto built that hotel, what happened inside it on the night of January 17, 1981, and why there is nothing left of it today. SOURCES: - Jamie Bradburn, "The Inn on the Park 1: Resort-style Relaxation by the Don Valley," Tales of Toronto, January 14, 2021 - Jamie Bradburn, "The Metro Toronto Accommodation Boom of 1962-63," Tales of Toronto, January 18, 2021 - Jamie Bradburn, "The Four Seasons Motor Hotel," Tales of Toronto, January 10, 2021 - Chris Bateman, "The Life and Death of Peter Dickinson's Inn on the Park," Spacing, August 23, 2016 - PETER DICKINSON: ARCHITECT John Martins-Manteiga 2010, Dominion Modern - Globe and Mail, "Stairs not priority in Inn rescue bid," January 20, 1981 - Globe and Mail, "Alarms were turned off when guests disturbed, hotel fire inquest told," April 11, 1981 - Globe and Mail, "Instructions to Inn staff conflicted, inquest told," April 14, 1981 - Globe and Mail, "Jury critical of search, rescue effort," May 8, 1981 - Globe and Mail, "Once-luxurious hotel was the place to be, Lastman and Godfrey recall," October 27, 2004 - Toronto Star, "Hundreds bid sad goodbye to storied hotel," October 30, 2004 - Globe and Mail, May 9, 2006 Christopher Hume, "No more rooms at this inn," - Toronto Star, May 9, 2006 Isadore Sharp with Alan Phillips, Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy, 2009 - Toronto Public Library Archives - Ontario Archives - North York Community Council agendas, City of Toronto, 2006