28 Daisy Avenue designation request from City of Toronto Staff accepted unanimously by Etobicoke York Community Council

At the Etobicoke York Community Council meeting on Feb. 26, 2013, following deputations from Denise Harris, Heritage Officer with the Etobicoke Heritage Society and Madeleine McDowell, Chair of the Humber Heritage Committee, the designation recommendation for 28 Daisy Avenue was unanimously accepted by the Community Council.

This is good news for the community.

We owe thanks to Denise Harris for leading the effort to ensure the designation process would be completed.

We owe thanks to the City of Toronto staff who provided the necessary research and recommendations, and to the Toronto residents who wrote letters in support of the designation.

We owe thanksto the new owner of the building, who has also expressed support for the designation.

We owe thanks as well to Councillor Doug Holyday for sharing his reminiscences about 28 Daisy Avenue at the  Community Council meeting. His comments were recorded and then transcribed using Dictate for Mac. I mention this because it’s the first time I’ve used this software to quickly transcribe a WAV file.

To get a sense of the history of 28 Daisy Avenue, please refer to this previous blog post.

A Sept. 27, 2012 article in The Etobicoke Guardian also provides background regarding the historical value of the building.

Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday recalls 28 Daisy Avenue

After the vote at the Feb. 26, 2013 meeting of the Etobicoke York Community Council, the chairman, Councillor Vince Crisanti, asked Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday if he would like to speak about the motion just passed.

“Well, just briefly,” Councillor Holyday commented, “because I’ve known this house all my life. I grew up on Twenty Sixth Street about a block and a half north of this particular building.

“I’m interested to see – I guess it’s on page 10 – there’s a list of dates and a historical timeline. One thing mentioned here is 1911, where the Lakeshore Gardens Annex, where this land company took part of this land. My grandfather bought a house in that development in 1919.

“I remember him telling me, first off, that cows from that farm – and that was down the street – would come up to the window of the house.

“And secondly, that he could see all the way from his place down to the lake, which you couldn’t even imagine that could happen now.

“That house has always been a standout in the area. It’s always been noticed for its age and its architectural refinements, and I’m quite pleased to see that the current owners are still wanting to keep it and look after it.

“I remember one time, too, there was a huge tree. In one of these pictures, it looks like a little gazebo or something to the left side of the building, which would be the Twenty Sixth Street side. And right about where that gazebo was shown in the picture, there was a huge, huge tree, and the big story: It got hit by lightning, is what happened. It snapped the tree right in half and everybody from miles around came around to see what had happened there because this tree had been there for a long, long while.

“But, anyway, just couldn’t help relating my thoughts on the matter.”