Lord Nelson Hotel

The Lord Nelson Hotel is a grand hotel in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is located on the corner of Spring Garden and South Park Streets across from the Halifax Public Gardens. It was built in 1927 by a consortium of investors led by the Canadian Pacific Railway who wanted a Halifax anchor to the chain of hotels operated by its Nova Scotian subsidiary, the Dominion Atlantic Railway. Along with the rival Canadian National Railway's Hotel Nova Scotian which began the same year, the Lord Nelson was Halifax's first modern hotel. The hotel was named after Admiral Horatio Nelson, who ironically never came to Halifax in his famous naval career, but whose name stood for naval traditions strongly associated with the heritage of Halifax.

On Friday, October 21, 1927, construction on the Lord Nelson Hotel began at the corner of Spring Garden Road and South Park Street on the old Dwyer property. The turning of the first sod was done by Mayor Kenny of Halifax, supported by a group of friends and well-wishers.

The task of supervising the construction was assumed by O.C. Gross, architect, with construction carried out by H.L. Stevens & Co. of New York and Toronto, for Canadian Pacific Railways, which had already constructed a chain of hotels in the Annapolis Valley for its subsidiary, the Dominion Atlantic Railway. The Stevens company had building experience in frosty winter weather; at night they heated the building area just completed with small stoves which kept the frost from getting into the finished walls. The building has a reinforced concrete foundation, topped with a course of granite to support the brick walls.

The hotel closest in style to the Lord Nelson Hotel at the time of construction was the Van Curler Hotel at Schenectady, New York, which was built for the General Electric Company. The walls of the Lord Nelson are of bluenose brick with ornate frame and Nova Scotia trip, with the concrete framework being covered in by brick. The aim of the construction was to use local materials and to award contracts locally. As much as possible materials available in Nova Scotia were used, although some had to be imported.

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