Bellhop recreates Victoria hotel with thousands of Lego blocks
Long before he began working as a hotel bellman, Glenn Waddingham's first job was at a toy store.
"They didn’t pay me in money because I was too young," he says. "So they paid me in Lego, which was great."
After assembling about 100 Lego sets over his lifetime, Glenn was eager to use the bricks more creatively.
"I really wanted to do something that was more me," Glenn says.
So he started figuring out how to recreate the hotel he'd worked at for almost 25 years, the Chateau Victoria.
"If I knew it was going to be this big and complicated, I wouldn't have done it," Glenn says.
Instead of relying on instructions, Glenn had to design everything himself.
"I'm pretty methodical when I do things," Glenn says.
He took more than 1,100 reference photos from the road to the roof and everywhere in between, and placed more than 125 orders for discontinued Lego pieces sourced from around the world.
He used more than 62,000 Lego blocks – often in unconventional ways – to realize his goal.
Every night, Glenn would turn up the tunes and start building.
"I think the most wonderful part was having something to look forward to every day," Glenn says.
"You forget everything around you," he says of his hours-long Lego sessions. "You just become consumed with what you're doing."
Like Michelangelo, who felt he was revealing a figure that was already contained inside the stone he was carving, Glenn felt he was doing the same with Lego.
"It just seemed to be taking on its own shape," he says. "Which was really neat."
And what a shape it turned out to be, after 525 hours of work over the course of a year a half.
It's a showcase of Glenn's design and engineering skills, inhabited by more than 95 miniature figurines.
Along with playing in the pool and eating in the restaurant, the characters can be seen maintaining the elevators and washing the windows.
"There's different aspects that appeal to different people," Glenn says, pointing out details both technical and whimsical. "I think that makes it appealing to everybody."
And now that it's on display in the real hotel's lobby, people are invited to see how Glenn's characters were inspired by real staff members and real moments with guests.
Instead of being a bellman, the mini figurine representing Glenn is on the roof looking skyward through binoculars, perhaps inspiring us to view the world with wide-eyed wonder.
"When I was a kid, I tried to see how the clouds looked like animals or something," Glenn smiles. "There's a lot of little things you can notice in the day and enjoy."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
DEVELOPING Milton increases to a Category 4 hurricane as Florida prepares for massive evacuations
Hurricane Milton strengthens into a Category 4 storm, and Florida could see dangerous storm surge, forecasters say.
DEVELOPING Police in several cities to increase presence ahead of Oct. 7 anniversary
On the anniversary of the Hamas-led attacks in Israel, police departments in cities across Canada are increasing their presence in Jewish and Muslim communities, as well as at the locations of planned protests.
Lawyers for Madeleine McCann suspect seek acquittal in his German trial on unrelated sexual offence charges
Lawyers for a man who is also under investigation in the 2007 disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann called on Monday for him to be acquitted in his trial on charges of unrelated sexual offences.
Madonna's brother, Christopher Ciccone, dead at 63
Christopher Ciccone, a multihyphenate artist, dancer, designer and younger brother of Madonna, has died. He was 63.
Rare cloud formations ripple the sky over Ottawa
A unique form of clouds made an appearance over the skies of Ottawa on Sunday evening.
Israelis, scarred and battling on multiple fronts, mark a year since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack
Israelis were holding vigils and sombre ceremonies on Monday to mark a year since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, the deadliest in the country's history, which sparked the war in Gaza and scarred Israelis indelibly.
Timeline: What has happened in Canada since Oct. 7, 2023
The Oct. 7 attack by Hamas fighters on Israel last year, and the immediate Israeli retaliation that followed, sent shockwaves throughout the world that have shaken Canada culturally and politically.
The Menendez brothers case is not the only one that's been affected by a true crime documentary
Being an armchair detective has turned into an American obsession, fueled by an abundance of true-crime content in podcasts and television series. But some of those projects have sparked actual legal developments.
The cooking method you need to learn to get excited about vegetables this fall, expert says
'Eat more vegetables,' doctors and dietitians say over and over. But for many people, it’s hard to do, because they aren’t excited about veggies or just don’t like them.