The strik­ing sil­hou­ette of Casa Loma pro­vides a roman­tic back­drop to this posh Toronto neigh­bour­hood. Nes­tled on the brow of the Avenue Road Hill, and sur­rounded by ravines and park­land, this res­i­den­tial enclave looks and feels more like an enchanted for­est filled with sto­ry­book homes, than the big city neigh­bour­hood it really is.

A neigh­bour­hood pocket bor­dered by the Annex to the south and For­est Hill to the north, Casa Loma has a high pop­u­la­tion of baby boomers and seniors. A major­ity of the neighbourhood’s immi­grants moved to the area prior to 1980, and most of these are Eng­lish speak­ing, of Euro­pean descent.

Casa Loma’s large Tudor, Geor­gian, Edwar­dian, and Eng­lish Cot­tage style homes were built mostly between 1905 and 1940. The houses on the south side of Lyn­d­hurst Court enjoy a spec­tac­u­lar view of Toronto’s sky­line and Lake Ontario. Many homes in this neigh­bour­hood back onto the Nord­heimer ravine, a for­est of mature oak and maple trees.

Casa Loma

In addi­tion to sin­gle fam­ily houses, the Casa Loma neigh­bour­hood con­tains a mix of duplex and triplex houses, lux­ury town­houses, con­dos and co-op apart­ment build­ings. The image of a cas­tle atop the Avenue Road Hill, sur­rounded by ravines, large old trees, jog­gers and BMWs is an eclec­tic mix, con­sid­er­ing the neigh­bour­hood is located close to down­town Toronto.

The promi­nence of the cas­tle led to a huge boom in the area, with many wealthy res­i­dents set­ting up shop and defin­ing the present neigh­bour­hood. The sight­lines and majes­tic beauty of the Avenue Road Hill have, over the years, inspired many of Toronto’s wealth­i­est cit­i­zens to build their homes here.

The nat­ural beauty afforded by the escarp­ment, which was forested until devel­op­ment began in the early 1900s, made it a pop­u­lar loca­tion for a diverse range of man­sions along Spad­ina which date from approx­i­mately 1890 to 1920. Most of Casa Loma’s homes were built between 1905 and 1940, and the hous­ing stock includes a mix of large Tudor, Geor­gian, Edwar­dian, and Eng­lish Cot­tage style homes, as well as some recent lux­ury condo high rises along Avenue Road and town­homes on Spadina.

Austin Ter­race, War­ren Road, Pop­u­lar Plains and Rus­sell Hill – all streets to emerge when the lands attached to the cas­tle were sub­di­vided – dis­play some of the most impres­sive homes in the city. Long, wind­ing dri­ves shield some homes from pry­ing eyes; pris­tine land­scap­ing is com­mon. The views from the south­ern end of the neigh­bour­hood make it a per­fect place for strolling.

Casa Loma

The one home that stands out above all the oth­ers is Casa Loma, a real life medieval cas­tle. Casa Loma was built in 1911, by Sir William Henry Mill Pel­latt, a promi­nent financier, indus­tri­al­ist, and mil­i­tary man.

It took three hun­dred men nearly three years to build Casa Loma, at a cost of $3,500,000, which at that time was an unprece­dented amount of money to pay for a home. Sir Henry enjoyed his dream home for less than ten years before mount­ing debts forced him to turn Casa Loma over to the City of Toronto.

In the 1920′s, shortly after Sir Henry’s depar­ture from Casa Loma, the exten­sive grounds and green­houses to the north of the cas­tle were sub­di­vided, and the cur­rent neigh­bour­hood began.

Despite the rel­a­tively insu­lated feel of the neigh­bour­hood, motorists have easy access into down­town via Bathurst, Spad­ina, Avenue Road, and Yonge Street; the lat­ter two streets are fast routes to the 401. The com­mu­nity is served by six ele­men­tary schools, three pub­lic high schools, three pri­vate schools, and a pub­lic library. De La Salle Col­lege is nearby on Avenue Road, one of the George Brown Col­lege cam­puses is located right at Dav­en­port, and St Michael’s Col­lege is around the cor­ner at Bathurst & St. Clair.

Casa Loma Real Estate

Locals do much of their daily shop­ping at the stores near that busy inter­sec­tion, with gourmet din­ing and bou­tique shop­ping avail­able in For­est Hill Vil­lage (Spad­ina Road, north of St. Clair), at Dav­en­port & Avenue Road, or in the Bloor–Yorkville shop­ping dis­trict. Dupont Street, form­ing Casa Loma’s south­ern bound­ary, has great shop­ping and din­ing from Christie Street (Loblaws, Block­buster Video) to Avenue Road, with every­thing from Shop­pers Drug Mart, the Beer Store and the LCBO to holis­tic health clin­ics, a raw food restau­rant, a world class patis­serie (Frangi­pani), People’s for burg­ers, and spe­cialty shops and ser­vices cater­ing to pets, fam­i­lies, and busy professionals.

The com­mu­nity is bisected by the Belt­line Trail in the Nord­heimer Ravine, a vir­tual for­est of mature oak and maple trees which links from Casa Loma to the foot of the Allen Express­way and then back again to the Mount Pleas­ant Ceme­tery. Some of the houses on the south side of Lyn­d­hurst Court enjoy a spec­tac­u­lar view of Toronto’s sky­line and Lake Ontario. The community’s largest park is the attrac­tive Sir Win­ston Churchill Park at Spad­ina and St. Clair, which boasts with ten ten­nis courts, a play­ground, long run­ning track and wooded scrub­lands, and a con­nec­tion to the Belt­line Trail. Cul­tur­ally, the neigh­bour­hood is enriched by such bas­tions as the Tar­ragon The­atre, which has pre­miered live the­atre for nearly 40 years.

Res­i­dents enjoy such neigh­bour­hood hot spots as the Cor­ner House Restau­rant, a con­ti­nen­tal spot on Dav­en­port just east of Spad­ina that makes “most roman­tic” lists every year. Scara­mouche is set on the side of the hill with a great view to the south, and has been a pop­u­lar fine din­ing spot for For­est Hill and Rosedale res­i­dents for over 20 years.

Those with a pen­chant for archi­tec­ture and his­tory will appre­ci­ate the close prox­im­ity to Spad­ina House, Casa Loma’s older, more hum­ble cousin; the first house to grace this area, it was built in 1866 for financier James Austen and improved through­out the Edwar­dian era. Today it is a city-owned museum and a trea­sure trove of Vic­to­rian, Arts and Crafts and even deco styles. Out­side, the Spad­ina Museum is a beau­ti­fully con­structed house sit­ting on a six-acre south lawn, which bor­ders an elab­o­rate veg­etable gar­den, apple orchard and grape arbor, and runs right up to the edge of the Dav­en­port escarp­ment (it is accessed from the street by an extremely long out­door stair­case). These calm­ing, pretty grounds are often rented for wed­ding pho­tos. Inside, there is a gift shop sell­ing hand­made prod­ucts in quaint old fash­ioned pack­ag­ing, with guided tours of the house being con­ducted reg­u­larly as well as spe­cial sea­sonal fes­tiv­i­ties. The museum itself is off-limits for par­ties due to the many pre­cious arti­facts, but the un-restored rooms are avail­able to rent and can be catered for gatherings.

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Con­tact the Jef­frey Team for more infor­ma­tion – 416−388−1960

Lau­rin & Natalie Jef­frey are Toronto Real­tors with Cen­tury 21 Regal Realty.
They did not write these arti­cles, they just repro­duce them here for peo­ple
who are inter­ested in Toronto real estate. They do not work for any builders.
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