During its first three decades, the Royal Muskoka was Ontario's preeminent summer resort and attracted guests from the upper echelons of Canadian and American society.

[1] The project grew out of the Muskoka and Georgian Bay Navigation Company, which had been founded in 1880 by Alexander Peter Cockburn (1837–1905).

[7] The Venetian design featured two three-storey guest wings that were connected in the center by a main building.

Jarvis's design borrowed many elements from the winter resorts in Florida built by Henry Flagler.

The property also had three cottages, riding stables, tennis courts, a nine-hole golf course, and lawn bowling greens.

The Muskoka Lakes Navigation Company built its flagship the SS Sagamo specifically to ferry guests travelling to and from the hotel.

On 2 August 1914, Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden was staying at the hotel when he was summoned to return to Ottawa before the British Empire entered World War I.