Authors and historians Joanne Doucette and Scott Burk will talk about Toronto’s lost golf courses at a presentation hosted by the Beach and East Toronto Historical Society next week.
The presentation is scheduled for Wednesday, December 3, from 7 p.m. to 8:15 p.m., at Beaches Sandbox, 2181 Queen Street E.
Doucette and Burk are the authors of the book Toronto’s Lost Golf Courses: How the Game of Golf Shaped a Region.
To provide a preview of what next Wednesday’s presentation will include, Doucette sent the following information about Toronto East Golf’s legacy to Beach Metro Community News earlier this week:
James Lamond Smith of Aberdeen, Scotland, the home of golf, arrived in Toronto from Fergus, Ontario, to work for the Bank of Upper Canada and manage its real estate portfolio. When the bank failed, he and Benjamin Morton took care of selling what remained of those assets. The close friends purchased estates on the Heights in the Benlamond neighborhood. “Ben” for Benjamin and “Lamond” for Smith’s first name.
Real estate agents Morton and Smith sold Toronto’s prestigious land for summer homes, close to sandy beaches for picnicking and swimming. The breezes up there not only chased away any stray mosquitoes from Ashbridge’s Bay, but also provided natural air conditioning.
Importantly, at a time when tuberculosis was endemic and had no respect for class or money, these vast hilltop properties were thought to provide protection against the disease. Early north-south roads, such as Beech Street, originally Beach Street, were paths to these beaches.
But these doctors, lawyers and business executives also wanted to play golf. What was then known as Scarborough Heights, the long hill above Lake Ontario, was ideal for golf, offering plenty of sand for bunkering and easy course building, as well as deep ravines and water hazards in the form of streams like Ames and Small’s Creek.
In 1876, Lamond Smith and some of his other friends wanted to form a golf club and founded the Toronto Golf Club, the first Canadian golf club west of Montreal.
Location, location, location. They played on rented land at Small’s Corners (Kingston Road and Queen Street East) behind the now-closed Murphy’s Law, and used the Woodbine Tavern across the street, where the donut shop is located, for their clubhouse.
Although the land there was tiny and flat and not ideal for golf, 1876 was a great year to start. The year before, Woodbine Race Course had opened across the street, providing a ready source of new golfers as well as more money for Lamond Smith’s ever-deepening pockets. In 1873, he, Morton, and a few other investors created a horse-drawn streetcar to transport aggregate from their Heights gravel pits to the city, providing much-needed building materials for a growing Toronto.
They discovered they could make money ferrying passengers to and from the beach. When Woodbine Racetrack opened, streetcars carried both racegoers and golfers.
Soon, real estate grew and chased away golfers. They moved to a new course in Fernhill, a property that would eventually extend from Coxwell Avenue almost to Main Street. It was there that in 1896 they built the first 18-hole course in Canada. They even had their own little railway depot, Lindenhurst Station, and when the steam engine came up the long hill from Toronto, the conductor would shout, “Golf, golf!”
In 1909, the City of Toronto annexed the area south of Danforth, between Greenwood Avenue and the village of East Toronto, opening the area to more housing. The Toronto Golf Club quickly decided to sell and moved to its current location on Etobicoke Creek in Mississauga.
Marketing genius Frederick Robins and Sir Henry Pellat named their new development on the golf greens “Kelvin Park”, suggesting modernity and electricity.
In 1923, a real estate boom began filling the area with housing. But it was too late for Henry Pellatt. On August 17, 1923, the Home Bank suspended operations. Inaccuracies in financial reporting and other deceptive practices have added up to a disaster for depositors. The Bank overvalued its collateral, which was mostly real estate, and, on this shaky basis, lent money. Home Bank’s liabilities far exceeded its assets.
Sir Henry Pellatt was a broken man. His wife died, he lost his castle, Casa Loma, and he ended his days living with his former chauffeur in a small house in Etobicoke. Robins escaped unscathed and was subsequently appointed diplomat representing Canada abroad.
But the legacy of non-golfer Benjamin Morton and his friend Lamond Smith continues today in the Benlamond neighborhood, with some stately and historic homes, long streets leading to sandy beaches, a new neighborhood stretching from Coxwell to Old Town East Toronto and, of course, a golf club.
Admission to the December 3 presentation is free and everyone is welcome to attend.
For more information on the event, please visit the Beach and East Toronto Historical Society website at http://www.tbeths.com/
