Something has been lost. In a modern business world so focused on the merits of quantity—more followers, more “likes,” more tweets, more posts, more interactions, more customers, more sales, more acquisitions, more branches, more products, more connections, more everything—something vital to our well-being has been neglected: quality.
However, for Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, this notion has not gone off the radar. Its keen attention to detail and its focus on customer customization and satisfaction show why quality should be at the forefront of operations. It’s a mindset that has never been clearer than in the brand’s new flagship location, in Toronto, the city where Four Seasons began.
To understand this devotion to quality, you’d have to start from the beginning. When Four Seasons was founded in 1960, by Isadore “Issy” Sharp, its purpose was to create a new kind of hotel—one focused on heightening the guest experience to unprecedented levels. Over the course of the company’s history, it has essentially redefined the hospitality industry, marrying luxury, technology, and convenience together for its customers—ultimately growing to 90 properties in 37 countries on 6 continents. Now, its new Toronto property is taking that vision to the next level.
Located in the city’s Yorkville neighbourhood, Four Seasons Hotel Toronto was designed by architectsAlliance, with the interior finished by Yabu Pushelberg—and both the inside and outside align themselves perfectly with Four Seasons’ larger vision. “This property was designed and built from the ground up to represent what we stand for as a brand today and how we will be moving forward,” says Halla Rafati, director of public relations for the property. “Many elements in this hotel have been carefully thought of so that we could show the world where we are heading.”
“Carefully thought of” is an understatement. When you first walk into the hotel, you’re met by a welcoming, plush seating area flanked by soft lighting and stunning artwork, which immediately gives off a cozier, more inviting ambiance than you might expect from one of the biggest hotel chains in the world in one of the biggest cities in North America. That, Rafati explains, is intentional.
“When it comes to the design of the hotel, Yabu Pushelberg tried to create these aha moments—something you wouldn’t expect,” she says. “The areas themselves are very residential. That is where your first aha moment comes. When you walk in, you’re really supposed to feel like you are walking into our home, because this is our hometown.”
The entire experience of arriving, in fact, is meant to feel like a kind of homecoming. The seemingly arbitrary pathways in the outside courtyard, for example, aren’t actually random; from above, the paths and plantings form the image of a blooming rose—a “roseless rose garden,” Rafati calls it. That garden and the adjacent four-storey fountain evoke Yorkville’s roots in the Victorian era, when such flourishes would’ve been commonplace. “It’s about the merging of elements because it’s such an old neighbourhood, yet we are such a modern structure,” Rafati says.