Ardwold Gate

1925

Toronto enjoyed a solid middle-class reputation of stability for decades. One of the kindest remarks about the city was that the best meals were served at home. Hardly a ringing endorsement for Toronto or the dining rooms of the fine hotels then serving the city.

A recession in the mid 1920s (largely eclipsed in the popular consciousness by the depression that followed it) created an attractive climate for property speculation—if you had money.

Ardwold George Beebe—founder, publisher and owner of The Canadian Record—suffered no shortage of cash and used the reduced property prices to purchase a handsome piece of property overlooking the city.

On this particular morning in the autumn of 1925 Mr and Mrs Ardwold Beebe were visiting the property with their chosen architect to mark the footprint of their proposed home. Mrs Beebe watched from the backseat of a Buick limousine while her husband pointed here and there to indicate where a wall, garden, window or wing would subsequently be erected.

The property was accessed from a lane off Spadina Road, north of the city’s famous folly, Casa Loma. Created in mock castle fashion, Casa Loma was already vacant—Sir Henry and Lady Pellat moved out in 1924, unable to pay their property taxes—and the well-heeled population of the city viewed Ardwold Beebe’s planned new home with a mixture of curiosity and speculation. Some wondered aloud if the proposed home would ever be built.

The house would be completed and the Beebe family would gaze downward on the city from their gracious family home for many years. Subsequent development near the home demanded that the laneway—now a city street—required a name.

The city fathers (there were no city mothers in those days) voted quickly to name the street after one of the city’s most illustrious citizens. The gates erected by Ardwold Beebe—the same stone gates designed to keep people out—still exist and frame the entry to the street today.

The street today is called Ardwold Gate.