Built for a financier and real estate mogul who went on to lose his entire business empire, this magnificent French château-style mansion on Toronto's Millionaires' Row played host to world-famous VIPs and was even Canada's most expensive home at one time. Yet its fortunes took a turn for the worse when the property was abandoned and left to languish, before being unceremoniously razed to the ground in the summer of 2022. Click or scroll on to take a look around the doomed mansion prior to its demolition and discover the secret lurking in its basement... 

In July 2022, photographer Dave of Freaktography.com headed to the Bridle Path, Toronto's Millionaires' Row, and uncovered a forgotten gem hidden beneath the undergrowth. He documented this ill-fated mansion in its final months – as you can see from this image taken by him that summer, the property's grounds were unkempt, with the hedges overgrown and weeds poking up through the paving on the driveway.

The lawn was in desperate need of cutting and ivy was threatening to envelop the mansion, having already covered many of the windows across the front façade. Yet the 30,000-square-foot property appeared structurally sound, with everything from the glass window panes to the grand front door intact. While the structure may have looked hundreds of years old thanks to its faux French Renaissance architecture, the manse was only built in 1985.

The stately 10-bedroom, 14-bathroom estate was commissioned by hotshot financier and real estate mogul Robert Campeau, who was, in many ways, Canada's answer to Donald Trump. Campeau wanted his dream home to look like a 17th-century French château, and the architects and builders didn't disappoint. They fulfilled the brief with a fine reproduction that would look at home in Provence. 

Campeau's well-heeled neighbours were reportedly aghast at the extravagance of the property magnate, who snapped up two enormous plots on the exclusive street and demolished the existing houses to build his trophy home. Toronto high society was buzzing with tales of the mansion's grandeur and its starry guests, who are said to have included former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau, Hollywood legend Jane Fonda and Scandal star Tony Goldwyn.

Visitors were no doubt wowed when they entered the mansion and came upon its galleried and domed grand foyer, which still looked to be in good shape last summer. Campeau had plenty of money back in the 1980s to splash on the property – his company once controlled major US department chains including Macy's and Bloomingdale's. But a decade later, the real estate baron's overleveraged business empire, which was worth around CA$10 billion ($7.6bn/£5.9bn) at its height according to The Globe and Mail, totally collapsed.

Riddled with debt by the 1990s, the company reported losses of CA$2 billion ($1.5bn/£1.2bn) and Campeau was fired. The crestfallen tycoon quit Canada for Austria and the mansion languished until later that decade, when Campeau finally sold it on. Then, in 2002, the property was bought for a purported CA$7.5 million ($5.7m/£4.4m) by Harold and Sara Springer. The couple enlisted a top heritage architect and leading designer to renovate the interiors, including the grand foyer, in a 17th-century baroque style that complemented the architecture of the building.

The Springers went to town, packing the mansion's elegant rooms with furniture and decorations lifted from old châteaux and acquired at auction houses in France and elsewhere. For instance, the grand foyer, shown here in listing images from 2017, boasted mirrors that date back to the French Revolution, a stunning marble Louis XV fireplace, Bergère chairs, Sèvres porcelain and other prized antiques, according to the Toronto Star.

The sunken great room next to the grand foyer was also in a good state of repair when Dave of Freaktography.com toured the mansion in the summer of 2022. The sublime space gave the adjacent grand foyer a run for its money, with ornate wood panelling and plasterwork, a marble fireplace and shining parquet flooring that's absolutely exquisite.

Here's how the great room looked when the Springers were in residence. The couple really did push the boat out, going to great lengths to ensure the mansion's interiors were as true to the period as possible. Everything you see in this room, which was designed to evoke a classic French orangerie, is reflective of the finishes that would have graced a grand château in the Loire Valley in the 17th century.

The gourmet chef's kitchen didn't appear to have been used properly in a long while when Dave of Freaktogaphy.com paid it a visit, but apart from some dust gathering here and there, the room doesn't look too bad at all in this photo. The high-end cream cabinets, fancy extractor hood and built-in refrigerator probably would have been as good as new after a thorough clean.

Pictured here as it was furnished during the Springers' tenure, the space really was up there with the most luxurious kitchens ever. Not a lot of people have an antique table and chairs, oil paintings in gilded frames and an oval Persian rug in their cooking zone. A property of this stature would have had a formal dining room too, of course, and that's the next stop on the tour.

The dining room looked almost pristine in its abandoned state in the summer of 2022. The ravishing plasterwork on the ceiling was immaculate and there was barely a scratch on the parquet flooring, which you can bet your bottom dollar didn't come cheap. The floor-length curtains and matching pelmets left by the Springers were spotless too.

Here's how the Springers dressed the impressive space. Needless to say, they didn't leave behind the dining table and chairs, crystal chandelier and other valuable antiques when they eventually vacated the property in 2020. They'd first put it on the market in 2014 through Barry Cohen Homes with an asking price of CA$25 million ($18.9m/£14.8m) but a sale never came to fruition. 

The Springers listed the mansion again in 2017 for a whopping CA$35 million ($26.7m/£20.7m), making the Bridle Path gem Canada's most expensive home for sale at the time. The property was finally sold in 2020 for the knock-down price of CA$30.8 million ($23.3m/£18.2m) to a company called Nascond Holdings, reported the New York Post. Harold Springer must have found it especially hard to bid farewell to the library, said to be his favourite room in the property.

Bursting with character and charm, the wood-panelled room looks wonderfully inviting in this photo from the 2017 sales listing. As was the case with the other rooms in the mansion, the Springers went the extra mile to make the library appear as authentic as possible. Every item in the space, down to the finest detail, either dated from the 17th century or perfectly replicated an antique from the period.

One of the couple's most fabulous additions was this charming recreation of a Parisian street in the ground-floor corridor. The murals of traditional French shopfronts and the sky vista on the ceiling added a unique touch to the property. Here's hoping the quirky tiny town was salvaged before the mansion's demolition.

Moving on, the family room featured wall panels as well as a large fireplace that gave the room a warm, snug vibe, as shown in this listing image. As with the rest of the house, the furniture and décor in the room were quintessential baroque, with some exceedingly fancy antiques on display. However, the space had a more relaxed, less formal feel than the grand foyer and great room, which wouldn't have looked out of place in the Palace of Versailles.

Moving upstairs, the gallery landing is really quite something. The mansion was actually used as a location for a number of movies, including Kissinger and Nixon and the Olsen Twins' flick It Takes Two from 1995, as well as the 1997 film That Old Feeling starring Bette Midler. In 2013, the property was even reportedly featured in an episode of the hit TV show Suits.

Leading off from the landing, this space was dubbed the boudoir on the property's floor plan. The Springers appear to have created the room as a sophisticated spot where they could read, pen a letter or savour a drink. Again, the decoration is top-notch in this 2017 photograph, making the decision to raze the mansion all the more surprising and disheartening.

Out of the property's six bedrooms, the master was the most impressive, as you might expect. Here's the room in 2017, with its unusual partially sunken floor. Just as beautifully decorated as the rest of the property, the room wasn't short on space, with a generously sized seating area in one of the corners. Plus, the room led into a mirrored dressing space and jumbo walk-in wardrobe. And then there was the gorgeous master bathroom...

The room was decked out with a clawfoot bathtub and, according to one report, the taps were made from solid gold, though it's more likely there were merely plated in the precious metal, which is nonetheless decadent. Note the divine round stained-glass window. With its wealth of quality unique features, this mansion was definitely a cut above.

A handsome oak spiral staircase connected the master suite with one of the property's most spectacular amenities, the Olympic-sized swimming pool. The cavernous room in which it was located doubled up as the mansion's ballroom – the 50-foot pool was covered over with a retractable floor for glam soirées. We can just imagine hundreds of guests mingling beneath the space's dramatic vaulted ceiling.

One of the more unusual features in the mansion was this bizarre-looking contraption in the corner of the pool room. Called an Aeratone bath, it was used for Balneotherapy, a type of water-based massage therapy. Invented in 1938, the curious device was a precursor to the Jacuzzi but it used compressed air rather than jets to work its magic.

Dotted with chic pool furniture, the space could have belonged in a luxury resort, judging by this listing photo from 2017. The basement was the next port of call on Dave at Freaktography.com's tour of the property in 2022. The subterranean level was packed with amenities, from the pool changing rooms and sauna to a bar and recreation room, a walk-in fridge and a wine cellar. But that's not all...

The most jaw-dropping feature beneath the ground was the mansion's bunker. Encased in concrete, the fallout shelter had a living room and dorm and was fully self-sufficient, with its own generator, battery and infrastructure. The owners must have rested safe in the knowledge they had somewhere to hunker down if a nuclear war, zombie apocalypse or other Armageddon-like scenario had come to pass.

That said, the bunker was relatively spartan, especially compared with the rest of the mansion. Simple white tiles lined the walls and the amenities looked to have been extremely basic. Dave at Freaktrography.com has speculated the shelter was built for regular guest and former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau. Another curious claim about the mansion is that it was reportedly blessed by former Toronto archbishop Cardinal Gerald Emmett Carter. Whether this is true or not, the property certainly wasn't endowed with divine favour, given its recent demolition.

Two years after the mansion changed hands, it was unceremoniously demolished in August 2022. While the estate looked to be in a reasonable condition, despite standing empty for some time, its valuable plot in one of Toronto's most exclusive neighbourhoods was likely the main draw for the buyer. The lot is reportedly in the process of being replaced with a flashy pad conceived by Ferris Rafauli, who shared a video of the home's demolition on Instagram. Rafauli is the superstar designer behind Drake's 50,000-square-foot manse down the road.

It's unclear who the elusive new owner of the acreage is, but we're sure it won't be long before a modern mega-mansion rises in its place. While the legendary château's fabric may have been reduced to dust, its legacy lives on, cemented in Toronto's folklore. After all, who could forget the mysterious, glittering estate that entertained presidents, A-list stars and high society, not to mention harboured a secret nuclear bunker in its basement? 

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