The design team drew inspiration from the building’s former state of deterioration, embracing the imprint of time and reimagining it with the utmost refinement to evoke a state of sublime transformation. White oak millwork that resembles exposed wall studs, inlaid mosaic tile offset to mimic a rug that has slipped out of place, and rippled ceiling rosettes playfully reference the hotel’s once dilapidated and waterlogged state. Guestroom fireplaces are clad in fluted concrete panels as if awaiting their polished marble cladding, and gilded industrial-grade metal is used to reinstate two quintessential Victorian design elements: the hotel’s exterior balustrade and the elevator cages.
Most hospitality offerings in the County are modest in scale and leverage being in the countryside. The Royal introduces a grander scale of hospitality for both guests and locals, albeit one that still feels connected to the contemporary rhythms of the region. The Royal’s street-front café, parlour, and library must shift from bright and lively during the day to low-lit and atmospheric at night, providing communal spaces for local residents and hotel guests to gather, work and strike up conversations. In place of a grand lobby bar, a custom armoire in the parlour opens to reveal a “shake it yourself” cocktail bar, creating appropriate functionality for the informality of the locale.
At its best, design is a practice of care and an opportunity to create real, lasting, impactful change. The Royal repurposes a derelict, 19th C. Victorian mercantile building through a process of surgical restoration and state-of-the-art upgrades. The goal is durability - a lasting structure resuscitated to thrive into the next century. The building’s new envelope, including new windows custom designed to emulate the original windows but now with high-performance glazing and seals, exponentially improves the structure’s energy efficiency. Significantly, the Royal's sensitive restoration has prompted the local community to establish a historic preservation mandate, serving as a benchmark for future heritage conservation efforts in Prince Edward County.
Playing on the expectations of the hotel’s name, history, and context, the design team embraced the quintessential tropes of a Victorian railway hotel by isolating them, abstracting them, and then reinserting them to create a rich contrast between the ‘genteel’ formalities of British tradition and the ‘real’ informalities of rural Ontario. Reinterpreted Victorian elements creating a "royal contrast" between the past and the future legacy of the Royal distance the hotel from the building’s buttoned-up past. Scalloped bathroom vanities in the guest suites, “wrinkles” along the edges of the dining room’s harvest table, and the parlour’s undulating fireplace surround mimic starched linens being pressed into service in surprising new ways. This petrification of traditional Victorian textiles emerges as one of the hotel’s foundational design concepts, guiding key materials and motifs. Tartan is rendered in stone mosaic tiles in guest room bathrooms, herringbone white oak flooring inset like a rug guides guests down a hallway, and wood-framed cross-stitched vinyl mesh used for the guest room headboards recalls the decorative threads of unfinished embroidery still stretched and bound by a wooden hoop.
"The Royal isn’t just a hotel, it’s actually two restaurants, a bakery, a café, several bars, a dining room, a retail pop-up, a spa and a hotel. It’s several vertical businesses under the same roof that all need to work well together. The café at the Counter Bar is a place to linger. During the day it’s bright and relaxed. At night, the lights dim and the music goes up, sultry and cool. Having this flexibility in design was key for operating a hotel in a seasonal market” Sol Korngold, GM
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At ground level, the design strategically blends hotel spaces with street-related hospitality for all visitors, not just hotel guests. The reception experience is inseparable from that of the Counter Bar, the two are interwoven with oak fins.
Doublespace
The Royal Hotel revives a dilapidated landmark property, reinstating it with contemporary flourishes that celebrate the building’s details, both splendid and decayed.
Doublespace
In the parlour, a starched white tablecloth in the midst of being unfurled provided the inspiration for the plaster fireplace surround. Bocci lights and air vents pierce the ceiling like dropped pebbles rippling water.
Doublespace
The coffee bar area in The Counter Bar features a fluted surface that echoes the hotel reception desk’s tufted upholstery. Wood fins that give the impression of studs delaminating from the wall curl like a ribbon around the café and bar.
Graydon Herriott
Evoking a state of sublime transformation, a column punctures the ceiling recalling the waterlogged hotel, wood fins define the reception like timber studs stripped of drywall, and a “carpet” of marble mosaic slips away from the reception desk.
Doublespace
By removing the physical delineations between the hotel’s front and back of house, the design re-engineers the relationship between guests and staff in a manner appropriate to the informality of the locale.
Doublespace
In the library, corduroy walls call back to the parlour treatment, but now in dark-stained oak. They give way to a large floor to ceiling window that invites the back garden indoors.
Doublespace
In the main dining room, the quintessential Victorian ceiling lantern is reinterpreted to emulate the underside of a mushroom, articulated in compressed acoustic paneling. A proscenium arch of oak and glazed tile frame the open kitchen.
Doublespace
Guest suites are articulated with petrified Victorian textiles now expressed in wood, stone, glass tile, and fluted concrete panels. The bedside fireplace is double sided and warms the open-concept bedroom with discrete views through to the sitting space.
Doublespace
The custom designed tartans, appear in the guest room bathrooms as mosaic tile in three colourways, showing playful indulgence in reinterpreting Victorian textiles. Similarly, scalloped Corian vanities play on starched white tablecloths.
Doublespace
The extension of hospitality offerings to the back porch and garden are anchored by a monolithic red clay garden wall, captured by a double-sided fireplace that supports a metal pool gate whose perforations outline dynamic foliage.
Doublespace
Red clay brick flows throughout the terrace, leading guests from the main Hotel to the Annex- a reinstated forgotten stable designed for long term stays.
Doublespace
The original Royal Hotel opened in 1881 and became the grand dame of Main Street. The promise of the recently completed railway and the commerce that it would bring nurtured the creation of upscale railway hotels catering to travelling businesspeople.
The Royal Hotel
Pre-construction, the central staircase was in such a state of decay, and had suffered so much water damage, it looked as though it had been submerged for years.
Greg Pacek
Pre-construction, moss growing on the floors of the dilapidated hotel was so thick, it looked like shag carpet.
Greg Pacek
Pre-construction state of a hallway in The Royal Hotel
Greg Pacek
Demolition state of the three remaining heritage walls.
Giannone Petricone Associates
Demolition state of the three remaining heritage walls.
Giannone Petricone Associates
The Royal section at Main Street.
Office in Search Of
The Royal ground floor plan.
Giannone Petricone Associates
The Royal second floor plan.
Giannone Petricone Associates
The Royal third floor plan.
Giannone Petricone Associates
Many of the hotel’s surfaces reimagine traditional elements as new, abstracted substitutes including slot seam leather walls, brass piping, and layers of terrazzo.
Doublespace
A tufted reception desk edged in oiled bronze and marble selectively slips between traditional and contemporary detailing.
Johnny Lam
The cafe counter’s fluted surface echoes the reception desk’s tufted upholstery, one of the hotel’s many “petrified” elements.
Doublespace
A column punctures the ceiling creating a rosette recalling the waterlogged hotel.
Doublespace
Rippled ceiling details romantically recall the hotel’s once waterlogged condition, while white plaster like a starched tablecloth furls and wraps the new fireplace hearth.
Doublespace
Articulated in compressed acoustic paneling, the grand gesture of the dining room ceiling ‘mushroom’ is designed as a contemporary substitute to the Victorian ceiling rose lantern.
Doublespace
Custom stone mosaic in four-colour tartan patterns adorn the suite bathrooms. Green slate, clay red, and buff yellow, echo their adjacent exterior wall cladding.
Doublespace
Detail at headboards whose design takes the form of squared-off embroidery hoops.
Johnny Lam
Detail at stone bench and corner fireplace dressed in fluted concrete panels, completes the Empire suites.
Johnny Lam
A balustrade of construction grade metal reinstates the element with contemporary grit and an oversized golden portal both shelters guests from the weather and treats the entry as a source for drama.
Picton, Prince Edward County
Ontario
247 Main Street Picton LP
Hotel, Restaurant, Bar
10/2022
3000 mq
Confidential
Giannone Petricone Associates Inc. Architects
Giannone Petricone Associates Inc. Architects
Structure Corp, HADY Construction Associates (building shell)
Heritage: ERA Architects Inc. - Landscape: Janet Rosenberg Studio - Kitchen: Trend Foodservice Design & Consulting - Acoustics: J.E. Coulter Associates Ltd. FF&E - Graphic Design/Signage/Branding: Blok Design - Artwork: Tatar Art Projects - AV: The Terminators 2008 Inc. - IT: TAS Consulting - Code: LRI
Procurement: P360 Concepts Inc.
Younes Bounhar (Doublespace Photography), Graydon Herriott
Curriculum
Giannone Petricone Associates Inc. Architects is a Toronto‑based design firm led since 1995 by principals Ralph Giannone and Pina Petricone. We are architects with work that extends from the scales of “the spoon to the city.” We are committed to contributing to a vibrant environment and see our projects as a careful choreography of architectural design, interior design, environmental design, and public realm experiences. Regardless of scale, our measure of quality is a project’s ability to positively transform and better everyday life.
