McGill Faculty Club celebrates centennial 

Once a male bastion and key venue for deal-making by University power brokers, the iconic greystone on McTavish St. has long since become an inclusive space
McGill’s iconic Faculty Club is one of the University’s most popular meeting points

When Trudis Goldsmith-Reber arrived at McGill on Aug. 14, 1964, to teach German studies, she was housed in an “unbelievably beautiful” upper bedroom of the Faculty Club, but was told the arrangement was temporary as, under normal circumstances, only male professors were lodged there.

The next morning, she came upon the reading room.

“People were sitting there, drinking whiskey and reading journals,” she told a full house gathered in the ballroom of the Faculty Club during the event celebrating the 100th anniversary of McGill’s venerable club.

“I sat down and I said to myself ‘Oh my God, this is fantastic. They have international journals. I don’t have to buy them.’”

Immediately, a man came over and told her that women were not allowed in the reading room.

“Surely you aren’t going to throw me out,” said Goldsmith-Reber, and continued reading.

“Every day she would go to the room and read the latest journals.

“They never threw me out,” she said. “It was fantastic.”

Professor Emerita Goldsmith-Reber would teach at McGill for more than 40 years.

“The club has always been home for me. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t move away when I retired in 2006,” she told the audience. “We celebrated birthdays, weddings, funerals – whatever you want – in this club. It [became] a real home from the moment I set foot in it on Aug. 14, 1964. I am eternally grateful to McGill for that.”

Sparing no expense 

McGill’s Faculty Club first opened its doors in 1924. It was located on University St., and was decidedly less sumptuous and spacious than the current iconic mansion on McTavish.

A victim of its own success, the Faculty Club outgrew its original home as membership grew.

Enter the Baumgarten House on McTavish, former home of Alfred Baumgarten, a wealthy German sugar tycoon. Built in 1885 – 86, the opulent mansion on Montreal’s famed Golden Mile boasted any number of extravagancies, including one of the first indoor pools and electrical lighting systems in a Montreal residence and a spring-loaded dance floor to give dancers an extra hop in their step.

McGill purchased the residence in 1926, making it the official residence of the University’s Principal, then Gen. Sir Arthur Currie. Following extensive renovations in 1935, the storied mansion became the Faculty Club.

Hub of McGill activity

By the 1960s, when Goldsmith-Reber’s experience was testifying to how unfriendly a place the club was for women, “the ballroom at lunchtime, this was McGill’s nerve centre. A lot of McGill business was conducted over BLTs and scotch. It was collegiality and lobbying, combined and parried out like speed dating,” said Peter F. McNally, professor emeritus at the School of Information Studies in the Faculty of Education and the director of the History of McGill Project.

“The table hopping was observed closely, watching who talked with whom. This was all observed and analyzed, and in the end, figuring out who was in and who was out,” McNally told the audience with a chuckle.

“Secret deals never remained secret for very long. Confidential conversations were soon broadcast far and wide from the Faculty Club.”

The times they are a-changing

The Faculty Club has evolved over the years. Women gained full access in 1970. In 1986, Vivian Livick-Chan became the first woman to be elected President of the Faculty Club Council.

Membership was opened to all McGillians and the general public, and facilities are now available for meetings, conferences and other events.

Once the bastion of a homogenous McGill professoriate, the Faculty Club has become the venue of choice to celebrate everything from Black History Month, Lavender Grad and Indigenous Awareness Weeks. It has also served as the setting for immigrants to be sworn in as new Canadians.

The lavish greystone has welcomed everyone from esteemed academics and foreign dignitaries to Queen Mathilde of Belgium and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus.

Through all the permutations, one thing has remained the same, the professionalism and attention to detail of the staff.

“In the hospitality industry, the most important asset is the staff,” said Nicolas Zrihen, General Manager of the Faculty Club.

“These people work hard every single day to make sure that what you get as an experience is always extraordinary. Our guests are our motivation. We do it for you.”