The Carlu
is a historic event space in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Known for many years as the "Eaton's Seventh Floor", the Carlu is one of Toronto's best examples of Art Moderne architecture.
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THE CARLU TICKETS
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History
In
1930, the
Eaton's department store chain, at the time Canada's dominant retailer, opened "
Eaton's College Street", an imposing
Art Deco store at the intersection of
Yonge Street and
College Street. The matriarch of the
Eaton family,
Lady Flora McCrea Eaton, was a member of Eaton's Board of Directors, and the Eaton's restaurants were one of her responsibilities. She retained the noted French architect
Jacques Carlu to design the seventh floor of the edifice, which was to contain the 1300-seat Eaton Auditorium, the Round Room restaurant, lounges and a private dining room. All of the facilities were to be connected by a long foyer, designed in the style of the ocean liners of the day.
The Facility
Itself an
Art Moderne masterpiece, the Eaton's Seventh Floor was at the heart of Toronto's cultural life for many years. The Auditorium played host to the major performers of its day, including
Billie Holiday,
Duke Ellington and
Frank Sinatra. The first performance of the
National Ballet of Canada was on the stage of the Eaton Auditorium. Canada's own
Glenn Gould, fond of the Auditorium's excellent acoustics, used the hall for a number of his recordings.
The Round Room was, as the name suggests, a circular room, with circular mouldings in the domed ceiling and recessed alcoves in the corners. At the centre of the room stood a
Lalique fountain, lit from below. Carlu was responsible for all aspects of the dining room's design, from the lighting fixtures to the Royal Worcester china, the stemware, and the waitresses' black uniforms. Carlu's wife, Natasha, designed the murals on the walls, depicting various scenes of pastoral life. For years, the Round Room was one of the most elegant places to dine in Toronto.
Decline
With the opening of the
Toronto Eaton Centre in
1977, Eaton's College Street was closed to make way for the new Eaton's flagship store at Yonge Street and
Dundas Street. The store was sold to new owners, and was rechristened
College Park
.
Although the new owners had originally agreed to preserve the Seventh Floor, they eventually determined that its preservation and restoration was not financially feasible, and they applied for a demolition permit to convert the entire floor to office space. After a lengthy court battle with the City of Toronto, the
Ontario Court of Appeal ruled in
1986 that the
1975 designation of the building under the
Ontario Heritage Act protected the Seventh Floor from demolition. Despite several changes in building ownership, and the efforts of local heritage advocates, the Seventh Floor was sealed off for many years and allowed to deteriorate; although it was protected by law, there was no legal obligation to use or restore it.
Restoration
The Seventh Floor was eventually restored, after years of neglect, and was reopened in
2003 to much acclaim as "The Carlu" event venue. Even the original Lalique fountain, which had long been believed to have been lost, was restored to its place at the centre of the Round Room. The venue's new name was chosen in order to honour the architect that had originally designed the space.