Following extensive renovations, Toronto's Victorian-era Gladstone Hotel shed its old, traditional skin in December in favour of a new, eclectic presence as an art hotel.

While conventional hotels offer conventional lodgings, art hotels cater to highly individualistic, often whimsical tastes.

Christina Zeidler, whose family owns the building and who manages the business, says her own experiences as an artist and filmmaker trying to connect with arts milieus in other countries inspired her to let artists loose at the Gladstone. "If you're travelling to another city and are interested in their arts culture, staying in one of the major hotels doesn't give you access - you're kind of detached."

The small but growing niche has gained its strongest footing in Europe. On its website, the Atelier sul Mare in Sicily bills itself as "a museum-hotel of contemporary art unprecedented in the world," where each room "becomes a work of art ... re-shaped by its artist in form, colours, materials."

Brennan O'Connor, Business Edge
The Blue Line room's silhouettes, designed by Barr Gilmore and Michael Arcand of Ghost Design, help set the Gladstone Hotel on Queen Street West apart from Toronto's other hotels.

Berlin's neoclassical Kuenstlerheim includes an art gallery and more than 40 artist-designed rooms. Concepts range from erotic to surreal: The bed in the Flight Room is made from a wing-tail unit and suspended from the ceiling with steel cables. Even some chains are showing interest - Park Plaza Hotels describes its Art'otel Budapest property as a "hip lifestyle hotel."

While Europe leads the way, North America also offers some creative examples. Half of the 51 rooms at Hotel des Arts in San Francisco are graced by colourful murals and other works of art. An online brochure says the owners "simply invited some of their favorite emerging artists to paint some hotel rooms. Floor to ceiling, and pretty much everything in between - with full autonomy to do whatever they wanted."

However, it's in Toronto, with the official reopening of the Gladstone, that the concept of art hotel has made its most recent splash. Despite several renovations over the years, the building badly needed repairs when the family of Toronto architect Eberhard Zeidler bought it in 2002 for $2.3 million.

Zeidler, who designed Ontario Place, Toronto's Eaton Centre and the atrium at the Hospital for Sick Children, entrusted responsibility for the new business to youngest daughter Christina, while Zeidler Partnership Architects oversaw the complex duality of maintaining historical integrity while bringing the building into a modern era. (The hotel, which opened in 1889, is the oldest continuously operating hotel in Toronto.)

The 18-month renovation proved demanding. But despite significant structural damage and alterations, crews managed to preserve original windows and restore other historical features, particularly along the facade and throughout the lobby and lounge areas.

On the main floor, next to a grand staircase, the accordion gate and glass shaft of a fully restored hand-operated elevator sit juxtaposed with a modern-day pay telephone, exemplifying the Gladstone's eclectic retrofit.

While the Gladstone has created a buzz among local architecture preservationists, the 37 artist-designed rooms and suites celebrate the storied history of the hotel and the surrounding Queen Street West neighbourhood, and set the Gladstone apart from the city's other hotels.

In one room, human silhouettes adorn a wall, shower stall and bedspread, while the outline of a chandelier instills a sense of a long-gone era. A room overlooking an old railway line carries the theme of Victorian-era travel, with a dresser fashioned from a pile of old suitcases.

One suite, infused with a deep, rich red, screams passion; another comes across as an experiment in minimalism, linear form and light.

While Christina Zeidler was looking for a powerful artistic presence, she did not want it to overwhelm some of the more traditional aspects of the hotel. The artists provided detailed concepts for the rooms that included basic parameters.

Brennan O'Connor, Business Edge
Gladstone Hotel manager Christina Zeidler poses in the Red Room, designed by Kate Austin and Kristin Ledgett of Ruckus.

"When we put out the call for submissions, they had to have a bed, two light tables and all the necessities of a hotel room," Zeidler says. "We looked for ideas that were interesting artistically, but the rooms had to be some place for guests to enjoy their stay and make their own story.

"We picked people who had a clear concept that fit what we were doing."

The artist-designed rooms are key to the renovation, yet Zeidler's notion of diversity included the hotel's longtime working-class neighbourhood. The result is an eclecticism that sees the karaoke set sharing the building's public areas with hipsters and punk rockers.

Guests occupy rooms and suites on the third and fourth floors, while the entire second floor has been converted to accommodate conferences, art shows and other special events. Management is putting the final touches on its kitchen, from which the hotel plans to serve locals and tourists alike.

"A building with many functions is ultimately a more lively building," Zeidler says, crediting her architect father for instilling her with that sensibility.

Multiple streams of revenue help with marketing, she says, because "each thing that you bring in brings new people to the building" and serves as a lifeline in the event of an economic crisis such as the one Toronto's tourism and hospitality sector experienced with SARS. "You can weather economic storms because you are bringing in income from different sources."

While the rooms are unique, Zeidler says she plans to keep pricing relatively modest. Rooms start at $165 per night and a rooftop suite costs $375.

"We have all the basic amenities of a hotel but it's not full-service. There's no spa in the basement and there's no valet parking. What our hotel is about is authenticity. That's why somebody would come here - they would want to feel that they're authentically in a neighbourhood of Toronto.

A lot of travellers want that experience," she says.

The artist-designed rooms and the emphasis on historic preservation strengthen the overall business, says Donnalu MacDonald, who co-ordinates and teaches in the hotel management program at George Brown College in Toronto. "When you look at the history of that building, it was the place to stay when you were travelling because you'd get off the train at Parkdale Station (across the street) and that's where you would go. Then it became a rooming house. They've really tried to stay connected to their community and that makes them different."

MacDonald says the multifaceted approach to the business is fairly standard in the hotel business - the larger chains also offer convention space, lounges and dining space. The Gladstone's eclectic, historic look, coupled with its use of space for artistic purposes, makes it stand out, however.

"If you're going to come to Toronto and you care about art and you're interested in what's going on in the galleries, they've put themselves up at the forefront," she says.

Rod Seiling, president of the Greater Toronto Hotel Association, says the Gladstone caters to a segment of the tourism market that appreciates a unique experience. "There's clearly a niche market for people who like to stay in what they perceive as funky, smallish-type boutique properties."

The challenge for the Gladstone and other hotels of its kind, Seiling says, is to stay current. "Given that people's tastes do change, what's in today can be gone tomorrow. They need to keep a watchful eye on that market to see how it's performing and what kind of legs it's got."

Christina Zeidler says the Gladstone's future lies in its ability to engender a close relationship with a diverse base of patrons and allow their presence to help define the hotel.

"I don't see it becoming a tired project because so much of the space is very open. People can bring their own events - their weddings, their exhibitions, their punk rock shows. These will keep it fresh," she says.

(Saul Chernos can be reached at chernos@businessedge.ca)