Built between 1904 and 1908 and enlarged twice afterward, the Empress Hotel was designed by architect Francis M. Rattenbury for the Canadian Pacific Railway in the Chateau style, identifiable by its steep slate roof and Gothic Revival gables. Rattenbury modified the style with a symmetrical plan and flanking pavilions that gave the design a strong vertical emphasis. These features made the Empress Hotel an important transitional building in the development of the Chateau style, which emerged as a distinctively Canadian approach to railway hotel buildings.