If you’re a Toronto gardener, you’ve probably already made the acquaintance of the beautiful gardens of Casa Loma. And if you’re one of the million or so tourists who visit the castle each year, then you’ve likely walked across the brilliant perennial terrace, gazed at the dancing fountain, sniffed the intoxicating fragrance of the old French roses, or wandered through the sun-dappled woodland when the trilliums and Virginia bluebells are at their very best.

The gardens of today’s Casa Loma are magnificent, but they weren’t always so. In fact, the gardens – like that proverbial phoenix – have risen from the ashes of a once-proud monument that fell on very sad times.

But first, a little history.

Casa Loma’s Beginnings

Casa Loma, Toronto’s 20^th century castle, has long been a popular destination for tourists, school children on field trips, and the merely curious. With its 98 rooms topped by a tower, the unique stone structure tells a fascinating tale of fortunes made, squandered and ultimately lost.

Casa Loma is the story of the man who dreamed it: Sir Henry Pellatt.

Born in Kingston, Ontario in 1859, young Henry Pellatt joined his family’s investment firm in his late teens, fresh out of Upper Canada College. When he was 24, he helped found the Toronto Electrical Light Company, later acquiring other power companies. He speculated heavily and successfully in the Northwest Land Company, wagering correctly that the westward expansion of the Canadian Pacific Railroad would increase his investment’s value. He was right -- by 1910, he was worth $17 million.

A year later, Sir Henry Pellatt started construction of Casa Loma – Spanish for “house on the hill”. Some called it “Pellat’s folly”: swimming pool, shooting gallery, vast wine cellars, stables, three bowling alleys and Toronto’s first elevator. Three years and $3 million after construction began, he and Lady Pellatt moved in, beginning what was to be their own Golden Age, entertaining Toronto’s gentry – on one memorable occasion in 1916, hosting a party for 3,000 guests.

Sir Henry was something of a horticulturist. He lined his huge conservatory with planters of Canadian marble, raising tropical plants in soil heated by a system of underground pipes. Outside, his flower beds were fashioned as four rectangles surrounding a central circular garden, and were situated north of what is now Austin Terrace. The entrance drive used by the family curved up the slope known as Davenport Hill. Sir Henry’s lush gardens formed the backdrop for many a fine party. Matching limestone staircases were carvined into the hill and kitchen gardens and orchards supplied Casa Loma with produce.

But times were becoming difficult and Sir Henry’s fortunes soured. In 1920, electrical power was ruled a public utility, depriving Pellatt of his major source of revenue. Subsequent business failures and property tax feuds with the city caused him to move out of his castle in 1923, listing it for sale at $700,000. Unsold, it was finally seized for back taxes. The valuation placed on the estate at the time of seizure was an astonishing $27,305.

It was briefly reincarnated as a nightclub, then as a luxury hotel, but the onset of the Great Depression forced Casa Loma to be boarded up again. In 1937, it was finally leased from the city by the Kiwanis Club, who hoped that opening it as a tourist attraction would fund the club’s myriad charitable projects

In 1939, at the age of 80, Sir Henry died, penniless, with his faithful chauffeur by his side.

Though the castle attracted many to tour the rooms indoors, the once-grand estate outside suffered profoundly the passing of time and the ravages of Toronto’s climate. Of the 25 acres originally contained in the estate, only 10 remained after the rest were sold to settle debts.

In 1985, Kiwanis asked the Garden Club of Toronto, noted for its successful restoration of other historic area gardens, including next-door neighbor Spadina House, to consider undertaking the renovation of Casa Loma’s grounds. Utilizing the powerful fundraising skills of its powerful membership, the Club raised almost $1.5 million to finance research, design and construction of a variety of gardens and plantings on the estate.

Today’s Gardens

Today, a typical Casa Loma visitor enters the castle through formal front gardens planted in the typical Victorian “bedding-out” fashion. Moving through the castle and out the back doors onto the upper terrace, the visitor can stand in a special lookout niche and gaze out over the lower terrace and all the way to the lake in the south. He would then walk east and enter the Secret Garden thorugh a pergola wreathed in pink climbing roses such as the ultra-hardy Explorer rose ‘William Baffin’. Moving past the Dragon Tree sculpture, the visitor descends via the lower terrace to a lawn containing five perennial gardens, patterned after Henry Pellatt’s original beds. They bloom through the seasons with spring perennials and flowering bulbs giving way to early summer delphiniums, lilies and beebalm, followed by phlox, echinacea, blackeyed Susan, balloonflower and globe thistle. In autumn, a new palette of late flowering perennials and shrubs takes over: hydrangeas, obedient plant, asters, Japanese anemones and chrysanthemums.

Past the computerized fountain, our visitor descends through the steeply sloping property which, like Spadina, follows the contour of the shore of Lake Ontario’s ice age predecessor, Lake Iroquois. The Rhododendron Dell is a cool, shady garden in dappled light under tall shade trees. In spring, it’s a glorious sight with flowering shrubs such as magnolia, mountain laurel, rhododendron and azalea, halesia, Oregon grape and holly. There are also shade-loving perennials such as hosta, bleeding heart, trollius, primula, geranium and astilbe. Later come daylilies, Japanese anemones, sedums and pink-flowered turtlehead.

At the bottom of the hill, the visitor might look eastward to thickets of hardy roses and stands of ornamental grasses, such as ravenna and miscanthus. Or he might pause to watch a robin splashing in the waterfall of the pond where huge white waterlilies float, bordered by pond iris, ligularia and scarlet cardinal flower. Then a stroll westward through the meadow garden, where grasses and native plants bloom in natural abandon and honeysuckle and clematis take turns flowering on the rustic arch.

Circling back up from the bottom of the property, a winding walk takes our visitor through an enchanting spring woodland, spangled in May and early June with trillium, mayapple, bloodroot, hepatica, violets, wild blue phlox, sweet woodruff and a variety of ferns. The woodland is the beneficiary of a 6-day blitz of wildflower-planting by 45 Garden Club members.

On the east end of the slope, a grand old limestone staircase, one of a pair built by Sir Henry, leads up through the newly-planted woodland filled with native Carolinian trees and shrubs: red maple, butternut, witchhazel, redbud, basswood, serviceberry, spruce, hemlock and larch, among others. Many of these shrubs and trees turn spectacular colors in fall. At the top sits The Donor Walk, each square-cut flagstone inscribed with the name of a garden renovation benefactor. The walkway leads back to the castle.

The castle itself still looks much as it did when Sir Henry Pellatt finished building his dream, more than 85 years ago. But the gardens are more beautiful now than he could ever have imagined them, more than a half-century after his death.

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