In 1892 his father retired, enabling Sir Henry Pellatt to invest with more risk. By the time he was thirty, the Toronto Electric Light Company enjoyed a monopoly on the supply of street lighting to the city of Toronto. He founded the Toronto Electric Light Company in 1883. In the same year that Thomas Edison developed steam-generated electricity, Sir Henry Pellatt realized that supplying electricity could be extremely profitable. Travels to Europe gave him the love for fine art and architecture, which would spur his vision of Casa Loma-“House on the Hill.” This romantic side was mirrored by his other lifelong passion-his involvement with the military, specifically the Queen’s Own Rifles.Īs a partner in Pellatt and Pellatt Sir Henry Pellatt was a business visionary. When he met his bride-to-be, Sir Pellatt had already achieved local renown in 1879 for beating the U. That year was also marked by his marriage to Mary Dodgeson, whom he met when he was twenty.Įven as a young man, Henry Pellatt embraced the spirit of the family motto “Devant Si Je Puis” or “Foremost If I Can”.
By the age of twenty-three, he became a full partner in his father’s stock brokerage firm Pellatt and Pellatt.
Ambitious from his youth, Sir Henry Pellatt left his studies at Upper Canada College when he was seventeen to pursue a career in commerce in the family business. Sir Henry Pellatt, the dreamer behind Toronto’s famous heritage site Casa Loma, was born to his British parents in Kingston, Ontario on January 6, 1859.