Langdon Hall Country House Hotel & Spa

Langdon Hall is a country house hotel in Cambridge, Ontario, about an hour from Toronto, reached by a winding road through Carolinian forest. The house was built for Eugene Langdon Wilks, son of an Englishman who had inherited American wealth, as a summer contrast to life in New York, London and a château in the Loire Valley, and the family sold it in 1982. In 1987 the architect William Bennett and Mary Beaton bought the neglected house and opened it as a hotel in 1989; Braden Bennett now runs it as Managing Director, with his wife, Jennifer Houghton, as Gallery Director. There are 60 rooms and suites, many with wood-burning fireplaces, soaking tubs and walk-in showers, among them the newly renovated Cloister Signature rooms. The original gardens were the work of John Charles Olmsted, son of the designer of Central Park, and the kitchen garden still supplies chef Jason Bangerter, who has led the kitchen since 2013. The Dining Room looks over the Lily Pond and the forest, Wilks Bar is the easier choice, and the cellar holds more than 1,400 wines. The spa uses Valmont products, and guests have a tennis court, croquet lawns, an outdoor pool and 12 kilometres of trails.