Madison Manor Boutique Hotel by Jenny Pidgeon

Madison Manor Boutique Hotel is located up at Bloor and Spadina, a fair walk from the downtown shopping and entertainment districts, but convenient for the university, Casa Loma, the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario – all of which are worth a visit. The hotel is part of a group that includes the neighbouring Madison Avenue Pub, a labyrinthine maze of bars and patios. The emphasis in the pubs and the hotel is placed on the fact that they are housed in renovated red-brick Victorian mansions and they both aim to capture an atmosphere of ye olde Britishness. From the ecstatic comments in the guest book, this look is just what a lot of Americans are looking for and people seem to find the place a cute, homely and quaint refuge from the modern world.

Coming from the UK, I found it difficult to get excited by their proud claim that some of the stained glass windows in the hotel are over 100 years old. But in a New World context I guess this is something worth writing home about, and the hotel has apparently been used as a period setting for numerous films – particularly the unremarkable wooden staircase that faces you as you first enter the hotel. Each room has been decorated individually by Isabel, the owner, who searched for the antiques and original pictures herself. The result is a clutter of different pieces, mis-matching fabrics and over-crowded walls. Teamed with plastic flowers, last year’s magazines, and bedcovers that reminded me of my grandparents’ house (this is probably what they were going for, of course), the whole place was simply trying too hard which resulted in an inauthentic feel throughout.

The rooms are generally large, especially the suites which feature fireplaces and comfy armchairs. The bathrooms are clean, if small and equipped with basic products and minute towels (Perhaps they are catering for small people, as I found the beds rather short as well). Breakfast in the mornings is ‘served’ in one of the bars of the next door pub. This translated as stale cakes, old bagels, luke warm coffee and variety packs of cereal being laid out atop the bar amongst the beer taps. Guests were left to fend for themselves as there was nobody around to offer help other than the constantly blaring TV above the bar. Reception also seemed to be unstaffed most of the time, leaving you to ring a bell for service. The hotel is very proud of its conference facilities which are hosted in the pub – consisting of projection screens pulled down between the beer advertisements, billiard tables covered over for buffets and seating provided on school dining-hall trestle tables.

Madison Manor Boutique Hotel calls itself “Toronto’s Country Inn in the City!”. The feeling of the place is just that – a chintzy smalltown B&B that has somehow found itself transplanted to central Toronto.