Gothic Heritage Estates

History of Gothic Heritage Estates

George Johnston St. Leger, an Irish shoe retailer who had served on Toronto city council, built this house in 1889 high on a hill above the ravine running down to Grenadier Pond, designed by H.G. Paul. He named it Clandeboye after a place in Ireland, and the arch over the drive read “Céad Míle Fáilte”, a hundred thousand welcomes. He was briefly the Junction's second mayor; he's remembered for asking “What politics is there in a piece of sewer pipe?”

In 1906 Dr. William J. McCormick bought it and opened the High Park Sanitarium, enlarged in 1907 by Ellis & Connery. Next door were the High Park Mineral Baths, the “Minnies”, fed by artesian wells and opened to the public in 1913 as Canada's largest open-air pool; they closed in 1962 for the Bloor subway. From the 1920s the house was rented to hospitals, and in the 1940s and 1950s it was Strathcona, a maternity hospital where many west-enders were born. Later it housed the High Park Youth House, a charity for young people.

In 2004 Don Desrochers' Gothic Heritage Estates restored the outside, which had barely changed since 1907, added at the back, and created 7 two-bedroom lofts of about 1,200 to 1,600 square feet, with hardwood floors, fireplaces and New Orleans-style wrap-around balconies. High Park station is a short walk away.