Toronto’s Drake Hotel is set to open new expansions to property on Dec. 1. The opening of the five-story Modern Wing will add 32 additional guestrooms to the property, bring the total room count to 51.
The expansion is located just east of the original Drake building, which is now renamed the Classic Wing. The three-story original building still houses the Drake Lounge, restaurant, cafe, Sky Yard rooftop patio and Drake Underground music venue. The new building connects to all the amenities and hospitality services while adding a new lobby bar and more than double the amount of hotel rooms.
Set in a new building adjoining the original hotel on multiple floors, the Modern Wing offers is capped with a polished steel boxcar-inspired cantilevered rooftop level suite. The facade of the handcrafted brick building has apertures intersected by oversized contemporary windows, a reference to historic, ghosted windows that pay homage to the street’s traditional landscape.
The addition is built and designed by the Drake’s in-house design team alongside Diamond Schmitt Architects, John Tong of +tongtong and international studio DesignAgency, and has art curation by Drake curator Ashley Mulvihill (who also helmed curation for the new Waverley building and the rebuilt Silver Dollar Room).
Built in the 1890 as Small’s Hotel, the property served passengers of the nearby Canadian Pacific Railway. In 1949, it was expanded the renamed the Drake, but the hotel eventually waned with the closure of the local railway station. After years as a punk bar and a rave venue the property reopened as a boutique hotel in 2004.