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Attraction >Landmark
| Colborne Lodge |
Address:
Colborne Lodge Drive
| Toronto |
Region:
Toronto
Rating:
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More Info
Phone: (416) 392-6916
FAX:
Website
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Description and Basic Information ::
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 Once dubbed “Howard’s Folly” because of its long distance from 1837 Toronto, Colborne Lodge today offers a peaceful sanctuary within Canada’s largest,
most exciting city.
With its stately verandas, informal planning and attractive placement in a beautiful setting, Colborne Lodge is a splendid example of Regency-style architecture, which swept the continent in the early 19th century. Its
dominant living room boasts three-sided south-facing bay windows overlooking a verdant garden landscape. While its interior is centered on a massive chimney, featuring three tall stacks, the whole capped by a penthouse master bedroom.
The distinctive manor was completed as a suburban getaway in 1837 by John Howard (1803-90) and named for the English-trained architect’s first patron, Upper Canada Lieutenant-Governor, Sir John Colborne. Besides having success as an architect, Howard was also a shrewd investor who purchased the adjacent 160-acre site with a vision to develop a new satellite village. But it seems he was ahead of his time. For Torontonians were not ready to purchase his far-off subdivisions. But Howard's loss became Toronto’s gain, as he donated the land after his death to form the present-day heart of High Park, a beautifully maintained, 400-acre urban oasis.
Saved from the wrecker’s ball by a group of community-minded women in 1925, Colborne Lodge was most recently restored in the 1960s by the Toronto Historical Board, which today operates the year-round interpretive center as
“a furnished museum for the city.” No outing to High Park would be complete without a visit. |
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