The Fairmont Château Laurier dominates the Rideau Canal entrance with its steep copper roofs and jagged limestone gables, styled to mimic a French Renaissance castle. Charles Melville Hays, the president of the Grand Trunk Railway, insisted on this grand aesthetic to anchor his hotel to the nearby Parliament Buildings. Hays booked passage on the Titanic to attend the hotel's grand opening in nineteen twelve, but he died when the ship sank, leaving the doors to open without their visionary.
Fairmont Château Laurier
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