Drake Devonshire Inn Hotel by +tongtong // Wellington, Canada.

Ten years after its revolutionary launch in downtown Toronto, the Drake Hotel brand opens a rural country inn in the historic town of Wellington in Prince Edward County, known as the Drake Devonshire Inn. Drake hotelier and visionary, Jeff Stober, brings back the original Drake designer John Tong and his design studio, +tongtong, to help with the reinvention of a circa 1800s foundry as an eleven-room and two-suite inn. The relaxed, lakefront inn is tucked just off Wellington’s main street, nestled in a treed property with a private waterfront and a meandering creek.

The historic building and its new additions take their aesthetic cues from Ontario’s vernacular architecture, celebrating its pitched roofs, covered porches, brick chimneys, multi-purpose barns, ad-hoc renovations, off-the-shelf building materials and mismatched furnishings. Although inspired by the qualities of a simpler time, this inn has a contemporary view of the world. As such, its features are blended with contemporary art installations by emerging and well-known art stars, and plenty of doses of the Drake’s idiosyncratic and mischievous personality.

The rooms are decked out with a unique combination of vintage furniture finds and +tongtong’s own custom-designed pieces, including tongue and groove bed frames, drawer-less desks and oversized armoires. Irreverent paintings by Toronto studio, Team Macho, hang alongside historic paintings in gilded frames.

[Images courtesy of Drake Devonshire Inn. Photography by Nikolas Koenig.]