The Royal Hotel / Giannone Petricone Associates Inc. Architects

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This passion project began in 2013 when the Sorbara family purchased The Royal and engaged Toronto architecture studio Giannone Petricone Associates to reinvent the dilapidated property. Its central staircase was lined with a lush carpet of green moss, and early in the planning phase, the roof caved in. But the family vowed to restore the property and bring it back to life as a nexus for both locals and guests of PEC's burgeoning food and wine region. Over a decade, the architecture/design team transformed the property into a destination for architectural and gastronomic delight.Text description provided by the architects.The Royal Hotel, in Canada's historic town ofPicton, Prince Edward County (PEC), Ontario, reimagines a landmark Victorian hotel and reinstates it as the anchor of Picton's main street.Within the building's three salvageable brick walls, the team established a new 28-room hotel with a cafe, three bars, a fine-dining restaurant, a spa, a gym, and a sauna. The landscaped garden terrace overlooks a fourth bar and fireplace patio, beyond which lies a swimming pool. Around a corner, the hotel stables were rebuilt to establish The Royal Annex, which houses five guest suites.Giannone Petricone developed a concept that plays on the expectations of the hotel's name, history, and context, embracing the quintessential tropes of a Victorian railway hotel. These are highlighted, abstracted, and reassembled with a mix of cues from the genteel formalities of British tradition and the real informalities of rural Ontario. According to GPA Principal, Pina Petricone, "The Royal is designed to be a transporting experience while deeply rooted in the local context. The experience benefits from the charged contrast between 'genteel' and 'real' elements." These playful foils abound. The gilded exterior balustrade and the elevator cage are fabricated from construction-grade metal. Ceiling rosettes are reinterpreted as a grand mushroom and ripples of water. "Petrified" Victorian textile patterns are presented in plaster, stone, wood, and metal such as unfurling, starched linen fireplace mantles, cross-stitch headboards, and tartan tile floors. Their colors cue from the building's façade –buff brick, clay brick, and green slate. "We wanted to have moments in the hotel that were a bit nonsensical," says Petricone. "The Royal is about escapism, and our research into the hotel's history demonstrated that it was always a pretty quirky place."