Château Frontenac

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Château Frontenac is a castle-like grand hotel in Quebec City, Canada, standing high on a cliff above the Saint Lawrence River. It opened in 1893, was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway, and was designed by the New York architect Bruce Price in the French "château" style. It is called the most photographed hotel in the world.

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At a glance

Country: Canada
Location: Quebec City, Canada
Built: 1893
Height: 80 m

Quick answers

Where is Château Frontenac?

Château Frontenac is in Quebec City, Canada.

When was Château Frontenac built?

Château Frontenac was built in 1893.

How tall is Château Frontenac?

Château Frontenac is about 80 m tall.

A castle-like grand hotel above the St. Lawrence River, said to be the world's most photographed hotel.

The building has 18 floors and is about 80 metres tall, but because it stands on a 54-metre-high headland it looks much taller from the river. It sits in the Upper Town of Old Quebec, beside a long wooden boardwalk called Terrasse Dufferin, and was named a National Historic Site of Canada in 1981.

A railway hotel

The Canadian Pacific Railway built grand hotels to attract travellers to ride its trains, and Frontenac was one of the first of them. Its style, called Châteauesque, copies the steep roofs, round towers and turrets of medieval castles in France's Loire Valley. The railway's hotel look became a model for other Canadian railway hotels.

Design and growth

Bruce Price planned a horseshoe-shaped hotel with four wings joined at wide angles. The base is grey stone, with a steel frame and brick walls, and inside there is mahogany panelling and marble staircases. The hotel was enlarged three times, with the last major addition in 1993.

It was not the first big building on the site. An earlier one, Château Haldimand, was built in the 1780s and torn down in 1892 to make room.

History next door

The hotel stands close to many historic places: an old convent of Ursuline nuns, the Plains of Abraham where a famous battle took place, and the Citadelle, a fortress that is still a working military base. Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt met in Quebec in 1943 and 1944; the city hosted wartime conferences between the leaders.