so much is dedicated to her memory. One of her neighbours there is Stephen Leacock, the only Canadian author of the time who had more readers than she did. Her papers and diaries were burned, as per her request. Caroline Clement lived in the house on Ava Crescent until she died in 1972 and was laid to rest beside Mazo. By this time, Windrush Hill was surrounded by subdivisions. It was still as beautiful as ever though, on its wooded hilltop, and still a private home. The family that bought the property from Mazo and Caroline added a sunroom, pool, and landscaped gardens.
Meanwhile, back on the portion of Lot 25-1E on Yonge Street, the farmland had been subdivided and developed shortly after the end of the Second World War. Like almost every lot in this area, it was subdivided sequentially as development flowed east and west from Yonge Street, since this was the only street that had public transit running into the city. By 1947, aerial photos show the northwest corner of Lot 25-1E covered in detached houses from Yonge Street to Willowdale Avenue and south to Newton Drive. Development would continue in an easterly direction throughout the 1950s and ’60s.
In 1963, Brébeuf College School was constructed, just west of Conacher Drive, under the direction of Jesuit priests, to provide a high-school education for Catholic boys in the community. The school was named after Roman Catholic missionary Father Jean de Brébeuf, who had settled in Huronia, near Penetanguishene, on the shores of Georgian Bay in 1634. He is remembered today as the composer of the popular “Huron Carol,” and as a martyr. The tragic story of his being captured and tortured to death by the Iroquois during their attack on the Hurons in 1649 is too brutal to be conveyed here. The St. Agnes Catholic Elementary School opened just to the south of Brébeuf College, and the Lillian Street Public School was built four streets to the west. Since no one opens schools without potential pupils, the transformation of the surrounding farmland to detached housing was occurring simultaneously.
If ever a photo could show just how much things can change in one person’s lifetime, this one, taken in 1956 from the former Mazo de la Roche property, could well be it. The East Don River is shown passing beneath the concrete bow-string bridge that carried the two dirt lanes of Bayview Avenue to the jog at Steeles Avenue East, where the white car is heading west. The Benjamin Fish gristmill, in the centre, was constructed in 1832 and demolished in 1965. It was partnered with the miller’s house to the right, where farmers, who travelled long distances to have their grain ground, would often spend the night.
Photo by Ted Chirnside, Toronto Public Library, TC 54-C.
By the mid-1970s, Windrush Hill had fallen into unsympathetic hands. JFM Developments Limited had purchased the house and its surrounding nine-plus acres for $1,600,000, and submitted a plan to the North York Planning Board that called for the demolition of the house to make way for a new subdivision. The planning board approved the plan but North York Council granted a six-week reprieve to see if the house could be saved while the acreage around it was developed. Local resident Marilyn Herz tried to raise money to buy the house and convert it to a museum but did not have enough time to reach her goal.
After North York Alderman Mike Smith persuaded council to talk to the developers about saving the house, Mayor Mel Lastman, who initially had washed his hands of the problem, despite a flood of letters to save the house, somehow managed to broker a deal that saw millionaire Don Mills developer Harry Winton purchasing the house and an additional 1.3 acres of land from JFM for $320,000. This was in late May of 1976. There were smiles all around as Harry declared his intention of turning the two-acre property into a mini-Edwards Gardens, with the library converted to a Mazo de la Roche museum, while the Winton family lived in the rest of the house. The mayor claimed that the house would become a showpiece for North York.
Harry Winton soon got down to the business of renovating his new home while New Style Construction, JFM’s partners in the eight-acre subdivision, prepared to build their subdivision. By June of 1977, Harry’s renovations were complete, while the subdivision was still under construction. Up until now things had proceeded in a civilized fashion, but, by mid-June, Harry and New Style were at each others’ throats. Harry, himself a developer, had allowed New Style an access road through his property to facilitate the construction of the subdivision, but when New Style cut down a row of forty-foot-tall pine trees near the border of the two properties, Harry closed the access road. The row of trees, known as the Whispering Pines, had afforded Windrush Hill a degree of isolation from the new subdivision and after they were cut down, Harry was so infuriated that he put the house up for sale.
Windrush Hill was advertised for sale in the Globe and Mail on August 12, 1977 for $600,000 as a war of words erupted between Harry and the Borough of North York that would last for over six months. Harry claimed he was turned down by the borough when he tried to re-zone the house as a museum — bizarrely, as an Estonian Art Centre Museum, not a Mazo de la Roche museum. Mel Lastman said Harry never applied for re-zoning. Harry then said he never applied because the process would have taken a year. Harry blamed a lack of borough cooperation when he put the house up for sale. Alderman Mike Smith countered that Harry had been much more difficult to deal with than the borough and suggested that Harry was crying crocodile tears since he stood to realize a $100,000 profit from the sale of the house. A group of nuns from Boston expressed interest in the house as a retreat, but the borough turned them down.
In October of 1977, Harry Winton, unable to find a buyer, applied for a demolition permit, which was granted. The same week, the permit was cancelled by building commissioner Sam Beckett and borough solicitor Charles Onley, who pointed out that Harry had signed an agreement not to demolish the house for at least twenty years. It seems that then, as now, the left and right hands of government are frequently unaware of what the other hand is up to. Harry said he’d sue, but apparently he never did.
The following February, Harry accepted an offer from the Zoroastrian Society of Ontario to purchase the property. Sam Beckett signed a letter on February 17 to confirm that a place of worship was an acceptable use of the property under the then-current bylaws. That same day, Harry accepted the offer to purchase. On February 27, North York Council passed a new bylaw to restrict the property to single-family use after receiving over 250 letters expressing concerns about increased traffic and congestion.
The bylaw was enacted with unusual rapidity — one council meeting with no prior notice — in spite of the fact that Charles Onley stated that the borough had violated the Planning Act by not informing Harry and the Zoroastrian Society of the meeting and the proposed rezoning. The Zoroastrian Society went ahead with the purchase on the basis of Sam Beckett’s letter of approval and were not challenged by the borough.
Today, Windrush Hill is a Zoroastrian temple, and, since full Zoroastrian congregations only meet a few times a year, the blame for the current traffic woes that despoil the once-idyllic intersection of Bayview and Steeles must be laid at someone else’s feet.
{Chapter Eleven}
Cameron, Munshaw, Thorne,
Crookshank, and Brumwell
This sounds like a law firm, doesn’t it? In reality, it was a spectacular farm with a parade of equally spectacular owners. This farm extended all the way from Yonge Street to Bayview Avenue, one-quarter-of-a-mile south of Steeles. As such, it was only one lot south of North York’s border with Thornhill, so it comes as no surprise to learn that most of the farmers listed above actually lived and farmed in Thornhill while farming this land as well. Benjamin Thorne, in particular, stands out since Thornhill was named after him. George Crookshank built the magnificent clay and straw-brick house now known as Heintzman House, on Bay Thorn Drive in Thornhill. German immigrant Balcer Munshaw drove his oxcart to Upper Canada from the United States in 1794, and John Brumwell was one of the five farmers who petitioned the province for the creation of North York in 1922.
In the early days
