Rathnelly Walking Tour- June 13 2015
Welcome everyone to the first historic walking tour for Rathnelly Day. Hopefully this will become a
tradition and thank you all for joining me. I am Pym Buitenhuis and I was born here in 1961, left for
many years and have now returned. Please take a moment to introduce yourselves to one another! I
will start by saying a few things:
1) What gets relayed today is simply a reflection of what I found fascinating about the research
I did. It is my reflection on the past and I welcome anyone who has facts or perspectives to
add. I am going to note down our conversation so I see this as a collaborative effort. Please
feel free to tell us any stories you have and when we do this again the tour will be that much
more interesting.
2) I have divided the history of the area into 4 periods: the green period or pre-contact
timeframe of the area, the blue period when Sir William McMaster built his estate, named
Rathnelly after the county in Ireland, (Irish spelling Rathnally/ Canadian spelling Rathnelly)
where he grew up, the yellow period which was from the turn of the century to the late
1950’s and finally the red period which takes us up to the current day but largely focuses on
the founding of the Republic and the notable people who lived here. I will references these
phases throughout the talk and hence hope to frame the historical progression with a colour
code.
3) And finally the path we will take takes us from here, Hardy’s Corners, named as such because
the Hardy’s at one point in the 80’s owned both houses on this corner, down Rathnelly to
MacPherson, west on MacPherson to Poplar Plains Rd., north on Poplar Pains Rd to the
entrance to the High Level Pumping Station, through the Pump back here, north on Rathnelly
to Cottingham, east on Cottingham to the laneway by Avenue Rd., south through the lane to
McMaster, west on McMaster to my house for some refreshments and conversation. This
should take us about an hour which gives you time to go home, change and be ready for
dinner by 5:30.
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So here we stand. Back in the green period, way back, we would have been under the waters of
prehistoric Lake Iroquois where we were the drop off point- the shoreline was St Clair and the sandy
shallow waters were up to the top of the hill. We then dropped off to where we stand now. When the
waters of the lake receded after a glacial ice damn collapsed at Niagara Falls about 10,000 years ago,
the native people in the area formed a road along what is now Davenport Rd as a trade route.
Because it is an old Indian road it is one of the only curved streets in the city.
Fade to McMaster’s period; he built his estate in 1851 on top of the hill straight north of here. The
estate stretched from Avenue Rd to Poplar Plains Rd., from Benvenuto to MacPherson. His roadway
switched backed down the hill and was paved in brick down Rathnelly to where we are now standing
and then went along McMaster to Avenue Rd.
The area was sold to a speculator in 1887 after McMaster’s death and thus began the yellow period.
The houses were built in sequence- Avenue Rd first, then Cottingham to Rathnelly, McMaster and
MacPherson. Poplar Plains came later. The style is typical middle class late Victorian, the homes were
heated with coal, lit by gas lamps, refrigeration by ice delivery, serviced by horse drawn wagons, and
lived in by ordinary people and their maids with construction taking place between 1887 and 1910.
Most houses had back stairs for servants, coal shoots, milk slots, and many more imprints of a new
industrial age. It was then the Pump was built, in 1906, the railroad went in in 1912, and then the
neighbourhood formed. During the Second World War, the area slowly degenerated and many of the
homes became boarding houses due to the chronic shortage of living quarters and the depressed
economy. Then came the late 50’s and early 60’s and a whole new generation, often referred to as the
“white painters” moved in- noted for their pension for covering up all the Victorian decorative wall
papers with white paint and imposing a simpler modernist aesthetic to their homes. These young
professionals tended to be academics from U of T, architects, designers, journalists, writers, artists,
ad agency people and musicians. Thus entered the red period of our history and the remarkable
period of tongue in cheek rebellion that takes us to today.
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Now that I have framed the arch of our history, let’s move to our first stop- the former house of the
Neighbour family just here at 36. Mr. Neighbour was a creative guy from a local ad agency and was
the art director for all the early posters and Rathnelly collateral. Every election, municipal, provincial
or federal, the whole area would come to this house to vote. Across the road were the MacPhersons,
he was a journalist with the Toronto Star and hence one of the reasons we got so much press for the
anti-Spadina expressway movement I will speak of shortly.
Next stop is the former home of our Queen, Eileen Robertson- she bought this house in 1924 and she
represents the bridge between the yellow and red periods. She lived to be almost 100 and was an
inspiration to everyone. The garden here was maintained by a former horticulturalist from
Buckingham Palace and was hence always magnificent. Her long-time companion, Penny, lived here
until just a few years ago. She was crowned Queen of the republic in 1967 and was crowned each
Rathnelly Day.
Down the street to #20 Rathnelly, the famous Canadian painter Harold Town lived here for many
years. Across the street was home to Robert Fulford, famous editor of Saturday Night magazine.
When his marriage dissolved, his wife stayed on in the house and sadly died when she fell asleep in
bed with a smoking cigarette in her hand.
We are now at the foot of Rathnelly where the coal depot had been. The high sides of the parking lot
are all that are left of the high bins of the Dominion Coal Company. The coal was stored here once it
had been off loaded by rail. Wagons pulled up, filled with coal and then vendors went door to door
selling coal to homes well into the post WW2 period. When the Dominion Coal Company went under
in the 1970’s RARA negotiated with the city to run the space as a parking lot in exchange for a cut of
the revenues. This relationship fed the RARA coffers until 3 years ago when the TPA took it over.
As we walk along MacPherson, note the Hydro building constructed in 1960, and that where the now
Summer Hill Nursery is used to be the Union Gas Company. Get to the intersection- On the RARA
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website you will see this intersection in 1910. It used to be the gatehouse of the Samuel Nordheimer
estate, Glen Edyth, which was torn down in 1924 and then all these houses north of us were built.
Later after the railway went in the roads coalesced here and hence the congestion. Images of traffic
here in the 1930’s indicate it has been this way for many decades.
Walk north to pump. As we stand here it is important to reflect on the Spadina Expressway, probably
one of the most catalytic things our neighbourhood went through. The planned route was south from
Eglinton through Cedarvale park, burst through the now Loblaws on St Clair, through the ravine to
Spadina Rd., south on Spadina Rd right through Spadina historic house museum, down the hill and
then below grade like DeCarrie in Montreal all the way to College where Kensington and China Town
would have been turned to off ramps. Fighting this expressway brought together the likes of Jane
Jacobs and Marshal McLuhan, and of course the fearless folks of Rathnelly for whom protests became
a way of life.
Walk into the pump park mid way along north fence. As we stand here opposite the parking area of the
pump, we know that the first pump house was Barb Sampson’s house. The basement of the house is
where the first pump was. When the existing building was constructed in 1906 there was a pond
here right where we are standing and the whole pump park was sealed off just for the use of the
workers of the station. Once again RARA came to the rescue here and wrote a charming letter to
Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau requesting the park be turned over to the Republic. (see last
page)
The large water tanks below Winston Churchill Park feed the pump’s turbines which were originally
powered by steam engines. There had been a large smoke stack here at the time to vent the coal fired
steam engine. The furnace was fired up once a week and the neighbourhood complained that
laundry on the line it would be black with soot that day ! During the Second World War the whole
perimeter of the pump was fenced off with barbed wire and stationed by military patrol because of
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the importance of the building to the city’s infrastructure, something many of us also felt during the
recent G20 summit here.
Back to Hardy’s Corners . It is worth noting that the only person who fought in WW11 lived at 48
Rathnelly and he was warmly welcomed home by the neighbourhood in 1945.
Walk north to 52. This house, number 52, was lived in by a branch of the Eaton family. They were the
only ones to have a pool but they also had a cottage- one of the daughter’s, who grew up here, told
her childhood friend Gen Burgess, she remembers"Every summer weekend as we returned from up north.....there would be a mass exodus from our
pool with wet feet running over the fence in all directions and little kids running so
fast without towels to get out before we could see them!"
One of the daughters was kidnapped from the house in the early 1970’s and there was a gunman on
the loose for about 4 hours trying to outfox the police. The kidnapper was found and the child
unharmed but subsequently there was a great deal of media attention which along with the burgundy
Rolls parked on the lawn made the family quite unpopular.
Apparently the elderly Mrs. Eaton suggested to her son that he put two hooks on the back of each
painting to keep them straight with the rumblings of the train traffic.
Walk up to Robin Fraser’s house: 31 Rathnelly, now home to Odette and John and their daughters and
previously lived in by a long time resident of the Republic, Robin Fraser, a lawyer by trade and
drafter of the RARA constitution, was the home of a fellow named John Becker who moved here in
1935 at the age of 2 and a half, living here until 1955. He wrote a lovely memoir which paints a vivid
picture of life in the yellow period of our history- very worth reading. He remembered Hurricane
Hazel which apparently knocked over a huge maple tree right here that fell onto this intersection and
took many days to remove. He remembered the coal man delivering hemp sacks of coal that he would
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dump through a designated window- check your basement as chances are one window sill will be
sloped and that was the coal shoot.
Walk north to Cottingham: McMaster was born in Rathnally Ireland, spelled with an ‘a’, in 1811 and
came to York in 1831. He amassed his fortune first in the whole sale goods trade and later in banking,
buying the old Bank of Canada charter and starting the Canadian Bank of Commerce, now CIBC. He
was a senator and a great believer in higher education, starting McMaster University in what is now
the Royal Conservatory of Music Building on Bloor St. In 1930 U of T bought the building and
McMaster was moved to Hamilton.
All along this ridge were huge mansions: McMaster’s Rathnelly, Spadina House, James Austin’s estate,
who started consumer’s gas, and Casa Loma are the only ones surviving. To the right of Rathnally was
Benvenuto, built in 1892 by Simeon Janes, the white stone retaining wall on Avenue Rd hill is all that
remains of that huge estate. The house itself had been constructed of that same white stone. John
Craig Eaton built Ardwold Gate, we have mentioned Glen Edyth named after Edith Boulton, and
finally the Oaklands built by John MacDonald, a dry goods wholesaler. It still remains as part of De La
Salle College. By 1916 almost all these great houses were gone. The McMaster house was massive and
included a tower that would have been higher than the trees we now see there. His living room was
alone was over a hundred feet long. It would have been a daunting presence had it survived.
Walk along Cottingham and mention the houses that were owned by filmmaker David Cronenburg,
artist Michael Snow, and architect Ron Thom and stop at the laneway just before Avenue Rd. John
Becker mentioned that during the yellow period of our history the sounds of squeaking wheels could
be heard far and wide as wheat carts coming down Avenue Rd from the country laiden with grain
braked against a metal plate along the curb to slow their speed. They sold their grain at the Bread
factory on Pears Ave.
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Later during the red period, a tug of war was held across Avenue Rd at the cross lights with our
neighbours to the east on the first Rathnelly Day.
Walk to McMaster. The houses we see here on Avenue Rd were amongst the first to be built and they
were the grandest. They had large front lawns as Avenue Rd was only 2 thin lanes and were
extremely spacious. South of the rail bridge were a whole range of retail shops- butchers, bakers,
florists, a laundry, general store, hardware store, etc. – and hence this area was completely selfsufficient. In the late ‘50’s the road was widened and the area became somewhat transient. In 1963,
thinking no one would care, the city took steps to take over these houses and build a super market.
RARA got wind of this and fought them and the plan was canceled. Then in the mid 1960’s in
preparation for the Cross Town expressway, an elevated highway set to sit next to rail tracks, all the
stores on Avenue Rd were expropriated and torn down to make way for the expressway off-ramps.
We came this close to being next to an off ramp. Recent studies indicate the most polluted areas of
cities are at off-ramp locations as cars idle to get onto main arteries.
Last stop, my house! And now we are done.
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