The newly minted Postmark Hotel, formerly the Newmarket Federal Building/Post Office at 180 Main St. S.Supplied
For the first half of the 1990s, I was between media gigs and worked an interesting assortment of jobs. For about a year-and-a-half, I was a Canada Post letter carrier. And while some have the disposition for that work, I did not, and suffered frequent panic attacks.
But, 30 years later, I wonder if the architecture had something to do with it. Seriously. My training was in the drab, faceless South Central Letter Processing Plant on Eastern Avenue, and most of sorting I did took place in equally drab facilities. Much of the mail I delivered was to industrial parks. For only a brief period did I deliver to homes on sunshiny, tree-lined streets.
In contrast, postal workers a hundred years ago worked in buildings such as the stately stone-clad and clock-towered one at Front and Davis streets in Sarnia, Ont., (built 1902-1904, demolished 1958), or the similarly styled affair in Sault Ste. Marie on Queen Street E. (1902-1906). In Toronto, there was 1117 Queen St. W. (1902) and in Vancouver there was 71 W. Hastings St. (1905-1909). These beauties, and over 150 others, were designed by Scottish-born David Ewart (1841-1921), chief architect of the federal government’s Department of Public Works from 1898 to 1914.
Postcards featuring Mr. Ewart’s postal buildings now decorate the hallways of the newly minted Postmark Hotel, formerly the Newmarket Federal Building/Post Office at 180 Main St. S., which was also conceived by Mr. Ewart and opened to the public in 1915.
When Lee Petrie, the curator for the hotel’s owner, Archive Hospitality, saw the building, she wondered why it was so similar to one near her husband’s family cottage in Lakefield, Ont. She did some research and learned of an initiative to build purpose-built post offices, starting in 1882.
“If you were a town about the size of Newmarket or Lakefield at this time, you got a building that was like this, if you were a booming metropolis like Sarnia, you got a more fancy, larger edifice,” she says.
Up on the hill and wedged between Trinity United Church (1879) and Old Town Hall (1883), Newmarket’s old post office is fancy enough. Italianate in style, it is made of red brick, with big chunky corbels, a shapely stone crown set over the door, archtop windows, and a mid-century addition to the west. It was also in remarkably good shape–it sat vacant for only seven years – when Streetcar Developments and Dream Unlimited purchased it in 2021 and announced they would transform it into a 55-room boutique hotel.
The good condition meant Kirkor Architects and Navigate Design could focus on interiors. So, if one can pry one’s eyes away from the clock tower and open the door to the lobby, there is a treat – well many treats – in store. Although most of the heritage elements were stripped away decades ago, the team has managed to bring some of the warmth and charm back via dark wood and brass light fixtures. Copious original art dresses the walls and helps create a “bridge between historical and contemporary,” says Ms. Petrie.
“The objective for the lobby was to create a space that is really warm and welcoming, and sort of straddles that line that you walk in and [say] wow, but not wow, I don’t belong here.” To achieve that, Ms. Petrie put a call out to artists–some known, some budding – within an 80-kilometre radius to further anchor the building to the community. Since door-to-door mail service didn’t hit Newmarket until 1958, the post office was a community gathering space for much of its life.
On a walk to the elevators to examine a few of the guest rooms and the rooftop restaurant, the visitor is greeted by Studio Kimiis’ You’ve Got Mail. This is a massive, folded, reflective piece that drew inspiration from the lines of an envelope. It is the only piece of art commissioned specifically for the hotel.
The rooms, as one might expect, sport the same quirkiness as Archive’s other two properties, Gladstone House and the Broadview Hotel (Archive is the hospitality division of Dream Unlimited). Guests’ quarters offer original art, ample space to stretch out, jewel-toned furniture and layouts that only a heritage building could dictate. On the top floor, the view of the clock tower lording over Main Street competes with the wonderful smell wafting in from the restaurant, Overlea.
“The very bell that you are standing underneath was the bell in the tower,” says Ms. Petrie. “It was manufactured by Gillette and Johnston in Croydon, England in 1915. It had been removed and it was owned by the town of Newmarket, so it’s on long term loan to us.” For cheekiness, neon letters repeating the embossed writing on the bell ‘float’ around the object.
Walking through the restaurant on this day, there is a flurry of activity as staff prepare for an event: “There’s a wedding here this afternoon,” says Shivani Lakhanpal, Archive’s chief operating officer, with a big smile. “We have at least one wedding every weekend.”
What a wonderful place to mark Day 1 of the rest of one’s life.
And speaking of celebrations, I was lucky enough to be in the audience at Queen’s Park for the Lieutenant Governor’s 2024 Heritage Awards on April 25, 2025. There, I watched as Ms. Lakhanpal accepted an Excellence in Conservation Award for the team’s “[r]emarkable efforts . . . made to blend heritage and modernity” to create “a timeless hotel.”