In the late 1980s, William Bennett and Mary Beaton traveled up a gravel path to a grand house, neglected and unloved. Today, it stands as one of the greatest hotels in the world.

The property still exudes the air of an old Ontario estate, originally built in Canada by the son of an Englishman who inherited American wealth, Eugene Langdon Wilks. The grand home was intended as a summertime contrast to life in New York, London and a château in the Loire Valley.