The Holt Renfrew store at 50 Bloor Street West in Toronto is marking 45 years of operations this month. When it opened in March of 1979, it was met with considerable celebration and marked a milestone in the chain with its largest store location to open at the time, by far.
The store boasted about 85,000 square feet of retail space over three levels at the time, considerably larger than the location it replaced up the street. The new store featured a marble-clad facade which existed until the fall of 2020 when it was replaced with a new look.
The 1979 grand opening of the Bloor Street Holt Renfrew store saw over 1,000 attendees pay $75 each to attend a gala — proceeds went to renovations of the Royal Ontario Museum. There was considerable excitement in the area as landlord Morguard had completed the Holt Renfrew Centre at 50 Bloor Street West, which would soon become part of an underground pedestrian system that connects several commercial buildings in the Bloor-Yorkville area.
The new 50 Bloor Street store cost about $6 million to build at the time, and was billed as “the most beautiful store in town”. About 300 people worked in the store, 85 more than in the previous location at 144 Bloor Street West. The new store’s interior was described in the Toronto Star as being lavish, with marble floors in the central area of the main floor with a mirrored escalator — an upgrade from the slow passenger elevators that moved visitors over the five levels of the former store.
Other materials used in the 50 Bloor Street store included bronzed and layered moires, taffeta, raw silk, and light woods such as white oak, olive as and white ash which lined the walls. Plush carpeting could be found in boutique and speciality areas.
The main floor of the new Bloor Street store was a showcase with a range of departments and boutiques. Cosmetics, handbags and accessories could be found on the main floor, and there was a mirrored black-and-beige section devoted to four Italian luxury brand boutiques that included Valentino, Basile, Fendi, and Salvatore Ferragamo. There was a shop called Fabriano which carried imported jewellery from France and Italy, and a Neuhaus chocolate shop where sweets were flown in twice weekly from Brussels. An upscale stationery area featured a range of items, near a 5,500 square foot menswear department that included a casual fashion area called L’Uomo.
The second floor of the store was dedicated to women’s fashions, including an area called ‘The Boutique’ which housed some of the priciest fashions in the city at the time. Designers in that department included the likes of Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Chloe and Versace in an area with plush carpeting and moody lighting. The second floor was also home to women’s designer sportswear, Ports International (a popular Canadian brand at the time), dresses, suits, coats, and a fur salon.
The third floor featured a women’s department called Miss Renfrew, a boutique for brand Cacharel, gifts, a beauty salon, and a travel department called ‘First Class’. A children’s department featured a range of designer clothing in a space featuring a pink and blue colour scheme. There was a gourmet food shop and a restaurant next to it called the Fresh Market on the third floor as well — Holts sold foods from Fortum and Mason in London and Fauchon in France, along with a range of kitchen and home goods.
American parent company Carter Hawley Hale made the decision to open the large Toronto flagship store after recognizing the rapidly increasingly affluence in the city. Toronto was seeing a growth boom and Holts took the opportunity to grow its presence in the market — previously Montreal had been the retailer’s headquarters, but an economic decline in the province following issues over language laws led to Toronto becoming the centre of the country economically for the first time.
The Bloor Street store was by far the largest of Holts’ Toronto stores, with other locations in 1978 including Yorkdale Mall, Sherway Gardens and Fairview Mall. Holt Renfrew had 18 stores across Canada at the time — the company had entered the Vancouver market for the first time in 1975, and also had stores in Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City.
Prior to moving to 50 Bloor Street West in 1979, Holt Renfrew occupied several floors at 144 Bloor Street West — current retail tenants at 144 Bloor include a Burberry store facing Bloor Street, and a Nespresso store facing Cumberland Street. Offices are located upstairs, including Ink Entertainment.
When Holt Renfrew opened at 144 Bloor Street West in September of 1955, it occupied the entire four upper levels and basement level of the building, spanning from Bloor to Cumberland Street. The Cumberland Street entrance featured a curved driveway for vehicles, with a marquee for weather protection. A small wooded parkette with a fountain at the centre was part of ‘Renfrew Walk’, as the tree-lined motor entrance was called.
144 Bloor was the first building in Canada with an exterior of stainless steel and glass, noted at the time to be similar to that of the United Nations Building in New York City. The Bloor Street building was considered to be state-of-the-art at the time, with air conditioning and a lack of columns throughout the store, with a 45-foot clear span supported by 27-inch steel girders. Recessed incandescent lighting was used throughout the retail space, which spanned about 32,000 square feet at the time.
The store featured a range of small departments ranging from hats to gourmet food — the crowded main floor had various departments from beauty to women’s shoes, and the third floor housed pricey garments in the ‘HR Boutique’. A luxurious Christian Dior salon was on the third floor, part of an exclusive arrangement Dior had with Holts in Canada at the time. Other departments included a children’s shop, footwear, sportswear, a Monster Marcel beauty salon, menswear and others.
Prior to opening on Bloor Street, Holt Renfrew’s Toronto operations were in a building at the corner of Yonge and Adelaide Streets (118 Yonge St.) in what is now the Financial District. That store opened in 1910 and served the Toronto market for about 45 years (the building’s facade was shockingly turned sideways, moved half a block north and incorporated into a new office development several years ago with SUD as a main tenant). Prior to that, Holt Renfrew operated nearby at 71-73 King Street East from 1889-1910.
The 50 Bloor Holt Renfrew store has seen expansions and renovations over the years — a basement level was added that was dedicated to menswear and a cafe, and a mezzanine level was added in the early 2000s for women’s footwear. Further space was added in 2006 by annexing an adjacent retail space on Bloor Street formerly occupied by Eddie Bauer. Holt Renfrew currently occupies 190,000 square feet at 50 Bloor Street West.
A standalone 16,000 square foot men’s store, branded Holt Renfrew Men, opened in September of 2014 at 100 Bloor Street West. Construction is now underway on the third floor of the 50 Bloor Holt Renfrew store for a new men’s store that will open before the end of the year. That will coincide with the closure of the 100 Bloor standalone men’s store.
The 50 Bloor Street West Holt Renfrew store has seen some substantial updates recently, including a new facade that was added in the fall of 2020. The circa 1979 white marble facade, which was starting to show its age, was replaced with a beige stone expanse that dominates the north side of Bloor Street (see photos above in this article). The store’s interior has also been updated substantially — in the spring of 2019, the basement level was converted to a beauty hall, and the main floor was updated before the pandemic with new luxury concessions. The women’s second level designer floor was updated during the pandemic with new Chanel, Celine and Gucci boutiques, the mezzanine restaurant was updated, along with the shoe hall, and now the third floor is under construction for Holt Renfrew Men as well as women’s contemporary fashions.
When the 85,000 square foot store opened in 1979, it was considerably larger than Holt Renfrew’s other Canadian stores at the time. The Montreal store on Sherbrooke Street was about 34,000 square feet over four levels, and the Vancouver store at Pacific Centre was about 32,000 square feet. The Montreal store was eventually expanded to about 65,000 square feet and the Vancouver store to about 68,000 square feet, before the company began to implement a Neiman Marcus-like ‘superstore’ strategy.
That ‘superstore’ location opening began with the construction of a 137,000 square foot Vancouver store in 2007 (now 180,000 square feet with an expansion), which was followed by a 150,000 square foot replacement store in downtown Calgary in 2009. In 2012, Holts substantially expanded its Yorkdale store (now about 130,000 square feet), and in 2017 it relocated its CF Sherway Gardens store to a 140,000 square foot space at Square One in Mississauga. Most recently, in 2019, Holt Renfrew opened a 250,000 square foot Montreal storefront on Ste-Catherine Street, rebranding the Ogilvy department store that had operated there for generations.
Holt Renfrew closed its smaller Winnipeg (shopping suite), Ottawa (40,000 square feet) and Quebec City (32,000 square feet) stores in 2015, and closed its 35,000 square foot downtown Edmonton store in early 2020.
The 50 Bloor Holt Renfrew store has a lot of history — many splashy parties have been thrown in the store, and some of the wealthiest and best-known people in the world have passed through its doors. The store has carried some of the world’s leading fashion designers and hosted them in-store, with TV show Fashion Television sometimes profiling the glamorous events. The store has gone through various renovations and expansions to where it is today, and its future is opportunistic as the area continues to build a clustering of wealth residentially, while attracting visitors from the region and beyond.
I often say that Holt Renfrew has slowly ate the Holt Renfrew Centre.