Forest Hill South

Forest Hill Fire Hall and Police Station
641 Eglinton Avenue West
*Note: This is an active fire station. Please do not block the driveway. Forest Hill Fire Hall and Police Station was built in 1932. It was designed by architects G.A. Bachman and A. Wilson. The combined fire hall and police station even included its own jail cell in the basement. The building saw several expansions over the years but, by 1967, the village was surrounded by the ever-growing City of Toronto and eventually Forest Hill Fire Hall and Police Station was taken over and became Toronto Fire Department Station 29 and Toronto Police Division 53.

Former Morden Neilson House
99 Old Forest Hill Road
*Note: Private property. Please observe the house from the sidewalk only. This is the former home of Morden Neilson. Neilson commissioned this house in 1932, and it was built in the Period Revival style. A few decades earlier, while his father, William, was away working in North Dakota, Morden sold milk door-to-door from the cow they had in the family's backyard. Upon returning to Toronto, William invested in seven cows and some used, hand-cranked ice cream makers. Neilson's Ice Cream was an instant success and the company sold 3,750 gallons in their first summer in 1893. The business soon expanded to making chocolates in order to stay in business over the cold Canadian winters. Morden took over the company upon his father's death in 1915 and William Neilson Ltd. became the largest producer of ice cream in the British Empire and the largest producer of chocolates in Canada.

Former Arthur D. Marrow House and Forest Hill Village Architecture
276 Forest Hill Road
*Note: Private property. Please observe the building from the sidewalk only. This two-storey heritage-designated house was the home of Toronto financier Arthur D. Marrow. He commissioned it in 1936 and it was designed by prominent architecture firm, Allward and Gouinlock. This house reflects both the high-end residential projects of Allward and Gouinlock and the standard to which homes built in the Village of Forest Hill were held to. Thanks to a by-law put in place in the early 1930s, any house built in Forest Hill Village had to be designed by architects, and the designs had to be approved by a panel of architectural experts. The house contributes to the historical identity of Forest Hill as an area known for the quality of its architecture. The design of the house is an unspoiled example of the Modern Georgian style, which Allward and Gouinlock were responsible for advancing after the Second World War. The firm is also known for their design of Sunnybrook Hospital.

Upper Canada College
200 Lonsdale Road
*Note: Private property. Please observe the building from the sidewalk only. Established in 1829, Upper Canada College was located at the southwest corner of Adelaide Street West and Simcoe Street. It was founded by the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, Sir John Colborne as a non-denominational feeder school for King's College (later the University of Toronto). The college was a boarding school divided into houses, with each house taught and headed by a classroom teacher. After several expansions both to the building and to their enrollment, the school relocated to its current location in 1890. The Romanesque Revival buildings include two schools. The Preparatory School at the south end covers senior kindergarten to grade seven, and the Upper School offers grade eight to grade twelve. The school continues to operate as a boy's school and only accepts 150 new students each year. Notable alumni include actors, writers, entrepreneurs and musicians, such as Jim Cuddy, Robertson Davies, Brendan Fraser, Sir Henry Pellatt, and Edward (Ted) Rogers.

Bishop Strachan School
298 Lonsdale Road
*Note: Private property. Please observe the building from the sidewalk only. Bishop Strachan School was founded in 1867 and named after Toronto's first Anglican bishop, John Strachan. The school was founded by Reverend John Langtry who wanted his four daughters to receive an education. This was at a time where girls could only get one at expensive private schools or in convent schools run by the Roman Catholic Church. It has operated as an independent school for girls ever since, and is considered to be the oldest continuously operating independent day and boarding school for girls in Canada. After moving several times, the school moved to this property in 1915. The school was built from Credit Valley limestone in the Collegiate Gothic style, and was designed by the same architects as College Park and the Royal York Hotel. Notable alumni include the first female computer scientist in Canada, Beatrice Helen Worsley, and Canadian women's rights activist Emily Murphy, who became the first woman magistrate in Canada and in the British Empire.

Forest Hill Apartments
400 - 408 Spadina Road
*Note: Private property. Please observe the building from the sidewalk only. Development in the Village of Forest Hill was enforced by strict by-laws that controlled the quality and appearance of new homes, including a minimum cost requirement for the construction of new homes. By the early 1930s, the village had become known for its high quality education and active community. This attracted many new residents to Forest Hill, and the construction of apartment buildings was encouraged in order to keep taxes low. The buildings provided a transition to the mostly single-family charm of Spadina Road further to the north. The first apartment buildings in the village were built in the 1920s around this intersection, but this building was not built until 1930. It was designed by architect Herbert George Duerr and is one of the few residential commissions he designed. It features apartments on the upper floors and retail space at street level, adding to the main street commercial area at Spadina and Lonsdale.

Marlene Hilton Moore 'Flowers at Our Feet, Moon and Stars Above'
320 Tweedsmuir Avenue, The Heathview
The virtual garden screen design of 'Flowers at Our Feet, Moon and Stars Above' is by artist Marlene Hilton Moore. It represents the beauty of a flower garden under a sparkling night sky. The individual screens on Heath Street intermingle designs of beautiful flowers with the birds that visit the gardens.

Former Apartment of Ernest Hemingway
1597 - 1599 Bathurst Street
*Note: Private property. Please observe the building from the sidewalk only. Nobel Prize winning writer Ernest Hemingway lived in this apartment building for a few months from 1923-24. At the time, he was working for the Toronto Star as a freelance writer. His work as a foreign correspondent with the Star took him to many of the places around the world that he went on to write about in his novels. The Toronto Star had Hemingway based both in Toronto and in Paris where he began his career as a novelist and went on to write 'The Sun Also Rises', 'A Farewell to Arms' and 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'.

The Gates to Benvenuto
38 Burton Road
*Note: Private property. Please observe the building from the sidewalk only. These gates (both the gates on the driveway and the smaller pedestrian gate just a little east of here) were originally the gates for the Benvenuto estate. The mansion was built for Simeon Janes, who built his fortune and fame in the 1880s by subdividing the land that later became known as The Annex. He built his mansion on Avenue Road, just at the top of the hill north of Davenport overlooking the growing city. He named his home Benvenuto, which is Italian for 'welcome' because he often hosted large dinner parties and concerts in its conservatory. The house was sold and then fell vacant and unkempt, which resulted in parts of the property being sold. The gates, which had been shipped from Italy, were saved and moved to their current location shortly after the mansion was demolished in 1932.

Hydro Home
555 Spadina Road
*Note: Private property. Please observe the building from the sidewalk only. Toronto Hydro and other companies that came before it, have been building shell homes like this one since the Second World War. Inside the home is a residential transformer with breakers and voltage dials. The house was designed as a Georgian Revival mansion in order to blend with the million dollar homes in the area.

Drake's Former Home
9 Coulson Avenue
*Note: Private property. Please observe the building from the sidewalk only. Drake's music career took off with the release of his first studio album in 2010, 'Thank Me Later'. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 in the United States and sold over 400,000 copies in its first week. His career quickly took off and three years later he released his third studio album 'Nothing Was the Same'. The first single from that album was 'Started from the Bottom' and was nominated for two Grammys, for Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song. The music video features important places from when he was growing up, including a Shoppers Drug Mart where he worked and this house, which was his childhood home. Drake went to school just up the street at Forest Hill Collegiate Institute while he lived here.

Suydam Park
22 Relmar Road
This small park features a children's playground, mature trees and has numerous commemorative trees and benches. At the west end of the park there is a connection leading into the Cedarvale Ravine. The park was revitalized in 2016 in a partnership between the Forest Hill Village BIA and the City of Toronto. The project saw the creation of a gathering area where the BIA hosts free musical performances. Surrounding this gathering area are forest-like groupings of lamp posts that have been designed to look like the sun trickling through the leaves of the tree-dense park.