The Allure of Fairmont Le Château Frontenac
It was in December, a few years ago, that I first visited Fairmont Le Château Frontenac (doubles from $230), whose fairy-tale silhouette rises on a promontory above the St. Lawrence River. I was smitten. However, what would Samuel de Champlain—who founded Quebec City on this very rock—have thought of the astonishing building that looms where his fort once stood?
He would certainly have appreciated the wave of warm air that greeted me as I walked into the chandeliered lobby. Moreover, the snowfall outside wasn’t heavy, but it was more than I had seen over the past decade back home in England. I happily sipped scotch in the 1608 Bar as tobogganers hurtled down the steep triple-lane slide outside. There’s nothing so cozy as a comfortable chair, a strong drink, and a view of people cavorting in subzero temperatures—although cozy is an odd word to describe a 610-room hotel built more than a century ago in the style of a Renaissance French château.
Historical Significance
The hotel was designed by American architect Bruce Price and opened in 1893, at the behest of William Cornelius Van Horne, president of the Canadian Pacific Railway. He sought to lure the glitterati to Quebec City—by train, of course. He predicted the Château would become “the most talked about hotel on the continent.”
Drink done, I eagerly went looking for ghosts. Historical figures like Charles Lindbergh, Grace Kelly, and Montgomery Clift once walked these corridors. During Prohibition, Americans came to party with free-flowing booze, and they kept coming long after the ban ended. In 1943, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt met here to plan the Allied campaigns.
Québéc journalist Monique Duval recalled visiting “this magnificent hotel” in 1939 as an awestruck teenager. Part of the Fairmont group since 2001, it remains both glamorously international and, in the words of local newspaper Le Devoir, “so prominent in the city’s consciousness that there is even no sign over its entrance.” Looking out over the St. Lawrence from my bedroom, I, too, felt like an enthralled adolescent.
The Dining Experience
If “le Château,” as locals call it, turned out just as Van Horne wished, perhaps it’s because Price—like his daughter, the etiquette guru Emily Post—knew just how things should be done. Even the fact that he took inspiration from Old France feels deliberate, a reminder that Quebec and English Canada are very different places. Not that the province was always united in admiration of the new arrival: Montreal was envious, Quebec City triumphant. “If you Montrealers want class and style,” the papers crowed, “come spend a few days at Château Frontenac.”
On my way to dinner at Champlain, one of the hotel’s restaurants, I peeked into the kitchens, where Alfred Hitchcock filmed a police chase for I Confess. I enjoyed guinea fowl under glowing wine bottles in a glass display case. The décor has been updated, but an old-fashioned formality remains, and I dressed accordingly: Duval wrote of coming to tea in high heels and white gloves. A rich history, a touch of polish, and a dollop of eccentricity: if le Château is the sign over the entrance to this chilly city, it offers the warmest welcome.
A version of this story first appeared in the February 2022 issue of iBestTravel under the headline Queen of All She Surveys.
