Sunnybrook Farm | Hiking the GTA

Saturday January 30, 2016

In the early 1900’s Toronto’s wealthy elite bought large country estates on the edge of the city where they kept their horses and engaged in fox hunts for leisure. They moved to the Bayview and Lawrence area where they could live in opulence in their grand English styled mansions. Most of these lots featured the steep ravines of the West Don River and it’s tributaries. Several of these grand homes are featured in Bayview Estates and today we look at the former estate that now contains Sunnybrook Hospital and Sunnybrook Park.

Joseph Kilgour along with his older brother Robert had made their fortune in the paper industry. In 1874 they started Kilgour Brothers in Toronto where they specialized in paper bags and cardboard boxes. The business grew into one of the largest of it’s kind in the country under the name Canada Paper Box Company. In 1909 Joseph and his wife Alice bought a 200 acre lot south of Lawrence Avenue where he established Sunnybrook Farms. It was one of the first country estates along Bayview Avenue and one of the largest as well. Starting at Bayview (first line east) and Blythwood it stretched across to Leslie Street (second line east). Joseph died in 1926 and although Alice would live for 12 more years she transferred the land to the city for a park just two years later. Joseph and Alice built themselves a grand country manor in the English tradition. The home had high wood beam ceilings and oak paneling on the walls. The open gallery made it ideal for hosting parties and displaying a couple of his hunting trophies. An archive photo of the inside of the Kilgour mansion around 1910 is seen below. Note the rooms that exit off each side of the gallery.

The house has since been removed and Sunnybrook Hospital was built in it’s place. Having parked on Stratford Crescent, just east of Bayview, I walked through the Sunnybrook Hospital grounds keeping the single smoke stack in view at the rear of the facility. At the back of the hospital campus is a former access road that leads down to the stables and a parking lot at the bottom of the ravine. The sign at the top of the hill says that access to Leslie Street is closed. One of the conditions of the park is that there should never be a road running between Bayview and Leslie. For that reason the bridge at the bottom of the hill has been closed. The bridge also supports a cast iron water pipe as it crosses the West Don river from the former mansion to the stables.

Major Kilgour was one of the best known horse men in North America. His reputation for keeping a well bred stable of hunting horses was celebrated, as was the farm he built. He named the estate Sunnybrook Farm and it was considered to be the perfect model hobby farm in it’s day. The stables were used by the Metropolitan Toronto Police for their mounted unit to house their mounts until they moved their horses to the horse pavilion at Exhibition Place in 2005.

Kilgour built one of the first indoor riding arenas in Canada. It also featured a viewing gallery with the provision of a section for a minstrel in the gallery. Groomsmen’s quarters provided living space for the men who took care of his horses.

The stables were built adjacent to the Don River with the table lands above used for horse riding and frequent fox hunts. Today this area can be reached by a road to a parking lot or by 86 stone stairs that climb the ravine behind the stables. The former plateau has been converted to a series of sports fields.

Kilgour and his prized hunter Twilight would host fox hunts with 30-40 members of the Toronto Hunt’s Hounds riding in pink outfits on the plateau above the stables. The Toronto Archive picture below is from around 1910 and shows Joseph and Twilight.

As I made my way along the edge of the playing fields in search of the 116 stone stairs that would lead me back down to river level I was surprised to see a group of a dozen robins. Robins will stay over winter on occasion and with this year’s warm weather it’s possible some may have. These ones seem quite plump and I wonder if they didn’t get pushed a little north by the recent blizzard in the United States.

As the sign said “No winter maintenance.”

After making my way back down to the river level I stopped to check out a 150 year old log cabin that has been reconstructed in the park. The Rotary Club of Don Mills moved this pioneer home here and dedicated it on July 16, 1975 to the people of Toronto. The dedication plaque quotes John Milton from Paradise Lost “Accuse Not Nature, She Hath Done Her Part, Do Thou But Thine.” This is a suitable motto for Hiking the GTA as well. Nature did it’s part, yours is to get out and simply enjoy. Leave the wild flowers behind, but not your garbage.

Last year in February we walked across Etobicoke Creek to investigate what turned out to be a coyote mating ritual. Based on current conditions I’m not sure I’ll be walking on any of the local waterways this year. If you follow the West Don River upstream from Sunnybrook Park you enter an area known as Glendon Forest. This forest is one of the largest natural areas in central Toronto and is a unique wildlife habitat that waits to be explored in the near future. Two waterways join the Don River in Sunnybrook Park. Burke Brook enters the Don River just upstream from the stables and Wilket Creek enters just downstream.

For many years Sunnybrook Park was known as Kilgour Park and a set of elabourate stone gates marked the entrance off of Bayview Avenue. The archive picture below is from 1933 and shows what the entrance to the roadway that I had used to access the river and stables in the valley looked like at the time. Sunnybrook Park was granted as a perpetual free park for the citizens of Toronto but with permission of the family heirs a section was transferred to the government for construction of the hospital. The gates were removed in the mid 1940’s when the hospital was built but a second set of gates remain in the park. The ones in the park have a plaque commemorating the 1928 donation of the park by Alice Kilgour.

Sunnybrook Hospital has it’s own tales to tell.

Google Maps link: Sunnybrook Park

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Sunday Nov. 2, 2014

It was bright and sunny but cold, minus 1 on the thermometer with a wind chill of -9. Warmly dressed I set off from home on foot. I headed to Sherwood Park to cut out to Blythwood Ave. A few trees in the park are holding onto their leaves. These three trees are distinctive in their colouring. The yellow one on the right is a maple, the rusty one in the middle is an oak and the orange on one the left is an aspen.

In the early 1920’s it became fashionable for Toronto’s wealthy to want a country estate on the edge of the city. The area of First Line East (Bayview Avenue) and 5th Side Road (Lawrence Ave) was ideal with Don River Ravine lots. One of the largest tracts was 175 acres which belonged to Alice and Joseph Kilgour. It is at the end of Blythwood and stretched from Bayview to Leslie. Many original buildings including the barns and stables remain in use. The cover picture shows the estate as it looked in the 1920’s. When she passed away in 1928 Alice gave the property to the city on condition that it never be developed. The influx of injured soldiers during the second world war created a need for a new hospital which was originally to be called Soldier’s Military Hospital. Today it is known as Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Tucked away in behind the newer hospital is the original building with it’s clock tower. The date stone shows that it was laid on Nov. 10, 1945. As we come to Remembrance Day 2014 it is fitting to think of the sacrifices that so many made to secure our freedoms. Sometimes we remember the dead but forget that so many were injured that we needed a new hospital just to cope with them all.

In 1928 James McLean, the president of Canada Packers, bought 50 acres of land overlooking the Don river on which to build his estate. He called the property Bay View, leading to the changing of the name of First Line East to Bayview Avenue. When McLean and his family moved into the house in 1931 they employed 4 gardeners for the upkeep of the grounds. Today the home is known as McLean house and it is on the grounds of Sunnybrook Hospital.

Many of the Bayview Estate owners had horses and McLean was no different so a separate coach or carriage house was built to store the carriage and the tack.

John James Vaughan was the vice president of T. Eatons Company in 1930 when he had Donningvale built on 31 acres of land on the Don River. It was grandly appointed with mahogany and large fireplaces. It too is now located on the property of Sunnybrook Hospital.

In 1920 Edward Rogers Wood purchased 85 acres of land nestled into a glen on the Don river where he set about creating the aptly named Glendon Hall. Wood had made his fortune as president of the Bank of Commerce and Canada Life starting when he was just 30. The property had been in use as a farm and the land was fully cleared of trees. Wood brought in mature trees and built gardens that became internationally known for their beauty and the speed with which they were built. Wood had spent forty years as a millionaire quietly donating his fortune to hospitals, churches, and universities. In 1959 when his wife Agnes passed away it became known that they had made their last and greatest gift by leaving their estate to the University of Toronto. In turn, U of T gave it to York University in 1961. The property now is in use as York University Glendon Hall.

Bayview Avenue was originally known as First Line East and then later as East York Line because it divided Toronto from East York. Until 1929 it was a dirt country road which crossed the West Don River on a single lane bridge. When Bayview was widened it was also moved to the west and given a new bridge across the valley. The first Bayview Bridge was built in 1891 and has been abandoned for 85 years and the old road allowance is becoming grown over.

Just past the new Bayview bridge on the west side of the river is the full contents of an old home. A fridge, stove, washing machine, and many other items have been thrown down the embankment. Lying among the oak leaves I found a 1944 Coke bottle. This is the oldest soft drink bottle that I have brought home so far this year.

Clifford Sifton was influential in Canadian politics at the turn of the twentieth century. He was the minister of immigration and was key in the development of the Crows Nest Pass agreement. American railways were extending their lines into southern B.C. to take advantage of the minerals that had been found there. At the same time, prairie farmers were complaining about the high rates charged for moving their grain. This made it political suicide for the government to fund the railway expansion. Sifton negotiated a deal that funded the Canadian Pacific Railway extension through the pass and secured permanently lower rates for the farmers. This also served to protect Canadian interests in lower B.C.

In 1923 he built this 22 room mansion on 26 acres of land on the former Lawrence property on the north west corner of Lawrence and Bayview. Like the other estate owners in the area, Sifton was into his horses and kept riding stables on the property. The area just north of here is known as The Bridle Path because of it’s horse trails that used to cater to the Bayview Estate owners. Sifton only got to enjoy his dream of living on a country estate for a few years as he died in 1929.

This house was built for Clifford’s son, Clifford Sifton Jr. It was complete with a swimming pool.

A third house was built on the estate for his other son, H. Arthur Sifton. These three homes are now part of the Toronto French School.

For about 30 years from 1925 to 1955 the Bayview and Lawrence area was a pastoral country home to many of Toronto’s most influential people. Today, their grand homes are almost forgotten in the bustle of mid-town Toronto. Toronto’s millionaires have located onto The Bridle Path making it the most affluent community in Canada.

According to my pedometer I made it back home after 16173 steps.

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Hiking the GTA

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