Toronto Athletic Club

File:Toronto Stewart Building.JPG

The Stewart Building

The Toronto Athletic Club, also known as the Stewart Building, is a building located at 149 College Street in Toronto. It was designed by E. J. Lennox and built in 1894 to support the activities of the Club. It included the first indoor pool in Toronto. A similarly-named, but unaffiliated Toronto Athletic Club now exists in the Toronto-Dominion Centre.

Building

The building is built in a "Richardsonian Romanesque" style favoured by Lennox. Its exterior is sandstone, a material that Lennox used in other buildings in Toronto such as the Old City Hall and the Legislative Building in Queen's Park nearby. An indoor pool was built in the basement. The building is approximately 4,000 square metres (43,000 sq ft) in size. Including the land, the building cost $128,873 to construct and a further $15,000 was spent on equipment.

History

The building was built due to the efforts of John Beverley Robinson, an amateur boxer, mayor of Toronto and Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. He served as the president of the Toronto Athletic Club organization when it built the building and served as its president until 1895. The building is on the site of a home of Robinson's.

The building served as the Toronto Athletic Club until 1931, Toronto Police Headquarters from 1931 to 1957, as a second campus of the Ontario College of Art & Design from 1979 to 1997, the home of the Collège des Grands-Lacs from 1999 to 2001, and since 2008 serves as the home of the Rotman School of Management of the University of Toronto.

External links

• Toronto Athletic Club Building at Lost River Walks
• Toronto Athletic Club at Canadian Architecture