How do you preserve the visible and hidden treasures of an iconic building like Montreal’s Mount Stephen Club—a national heritage site and a prime example of the country’s Neo-Renaissance style—while also adding a modern touch to help it compete in an already crowded hospitality market?
For owner Tidan Group and A&D firm Lemay, the answer lies in the careful juxtaposition of old and new.
The Mount Stephen Club, a private establishment for more than 85 years before closing in 2011, will soon anchor a new 80-room hotel complex in the heart of Montreal’s Golden Square Mile, once home to some of the largest fortunes (and houses) in Canada.
To incorporate the new features of the complex, the proposed architectural scheme plans to locate the hotel at the rear side of the site, allowing the new building to act as a backdrop to the original building. Guests will enter through Mount Stephen’s front door and follow circulation paths north-south around the heritage building, linking all parts of the complex together.
In addition to luxurious accommodations, this 12-story building will offer high-quality service with banquet rooms for 500 guests, flexible meeting rooms, a spa, a fitness center and an underground parking lot. Meanwhile, the interior space of the club will be expanded from 28,000 square feet to almost 70,000.
For the facade located at the back of Mount Stephen Club, a custom concrete finish featuring recycled glass is to serve as a fitting contemporary counterpoint to the gray limestone. On the three demising walls, a series of reflective LED fixtures, normally used in landscaping and powered by photovoltaic cells, will be inlaid in panels along the diamond grid pattern, thus transforming a “dumb and blind” wall into a signature feature.
The redevelopment project, which will also seek LEED Silver and BOMA Best certifications, is scheduled for completion in June 2014. For more information visit www.lemay.qc.ca.
