IN THE MATTER OF THE ONTARIO HERITAGE ACT
R.S.O. 1990 CHAPTER 0.18 AND
CITY OF TORONTO, PROVINCE OF ONTARIO
68 DAISY AVENUE
NOTICE OF INTENTION TO DESIGNATE
Take notice that Toronto City Council intends to designate the lands and buildings known municipally as 68 Daisy Avenue under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act.
Reasons for Designation
The property at 68 Daisy Avenue (Vincent Massey Childcare Centre) is worthy of designation under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act for its cultural heritage value, and meets Ontario Regulation 9/06, the provincial criteria prescribed for municipal designation under all three categories of design, associative and contextual value.
Description
The property at 68 Daisy Avenue contains the former Daisy Avenue Public School (1929), now known as the Vincent Massey Childcare Centre, a two-and-a-half storey, brick and stone clad school building, located on the north side of Daisy Avenue and also visible from Elder Avenue and Twenty-Ninth Streets. The building has later additions, on the east and west side of the original building, completed in the 1950s and 1960s. The west side addition dating to 1963-4 is not identified as a heritage attribute.
Statement of Cultural Heritage Value
The Vincent Massey Childcare Centre (Daisy Avenue Public School) has design value as a representative example of an early twentieth century Toronto school, designed in the Collegiate Gothic Style, with a formal symmetrical composition on a raised base with a broad stair leading to a centrally located entrance. Brick-clad with Tudor-Revival details the school demonstrates on each façade a high level of artistic merit. Its east addition, completed in 1955-6, is modernist in style featuring elements, such as the split gable roof with clerestorey windows, projecting bay window and classrooms with direct access to the grounds which all contribute to an enhanced learning environment.
The building has associative value as the original 1929 structure and its 1955-6 addition are associated with the evolution of public education in the City of Toronto in the early to mid-twentieth century. The school building is valued for its association with the growth and development of Long Branch which evolved from an outpost for retired Loyalist soldiers and mid-19th century farming, to a vacation resort and finally to a cohesive community which achieved independent status in 1931. The property is also associated with the early work of the prolific Toronto architect George Roper Gouinlock who designed the first school building and the firm of Murray Brown and Elton, who designed the additions of 1955-6 and 1963-4 and contributed to other mid-century public buildings in Long Branch.
Contextually, the school is set back from Daisy Avenue on the south side of the property in a landscaped setting characterized by open space of lawns with trees, and surrounded on the north and west by playgrounds facing Elder Avenue and Twenty-Ninth Street. The building has been a local landmark in the Long Branch community for over 85 years. It is visually and historically linked to the surrounding residential neighbourhood. Constructed in 1929, with a 1955-6 extension, it supports the diverse period character and scale of the local housing types. It is a local landmark linking the neighbourhood to its earliest period of development and history to the present.
Heritage Attributes
The heritage attributes of the property at 68 Daisy Avenue are:
Original School Building (1929):
• The setback, placement and orientation of the building, at the end of the block on the north side of Daisy Avenue between Phlox Avenue and Twenty-Ninth Street
• The landscaped setting with lawns and trees on the south side of the property in front of the school complex and the open space on the east, north and west sides of the property
• The scale, form and massing of the two-storey building on a raised basement with a flat roof.
• The massing of the building, which is composed of a rectangular block, modified by shallow projecting bays on the principal (south) elevation and the side (east and west) elevations and a chimney on the rear (north) elevation. On the south elevation the projecting bay is higher than the block and is terminated in a decorative parapet including two stone pinnacles flanking a central circular form and includes a broad staircase to the principal entrance
• The arrangement of openings on the principal (south) elevation is symmetrical and comprises the arrangement in the central bay of the main entrance with its flat-headed Tudor arch opening flanked by two small rectangular windows, with a large window opening above the door, flanked by two small rectangular windows identical to those below. To either side of the bay is a large horizontal opening at the first and second floor levels with six vertical openings at the basement level
• The materials, comprising brick, stone and wood windows
• The dark red brick cladding features vertical headers over the windows on all elevations and a string course of headers between the basement and first floor on the north (rear) elevation
• Stone is used on the principal (south) elevation in the following elements including the corner stone to the right of the entrance with the date 1929, and on the central bay including the door case with its archway with shield decorations, hexagonal stone pilasters supporting a stone entablature a cornice on which rests the base to the second floor window which includes a pair of obelisks. The second floor window is trimmed at the sides with stone quoins. Above the window, the parapet features a stone relief panel with an incised lozenge motif flanked by two rectangles, two stone pinnacles with decorative bosses at their bases and the stepped stone decorations and trim of the circular pediment. Stone also frames the four small windows on the bay, in the sills of the adjacent horizontal windows and as a narrow belt course at the parapet level and a broader band between the basement and first floors. It is also included as a broad cap to the brick balustrades of the stair case.
• The window glazing on the principal (south elevation) originally featured double-hung sash with smaller upper sash over longer lower sash divided with wood mullions with a pattern of 9 over 12 panes, or 4 over 6 or as once seen in the classroom windows to the sides and still featured on the rear, north, elevation, 9 over 12. The current aluminum sash in the classroom and basement windows maintains the original vertical division of the windows into six panels.
• The stone belt course continues on the west and east side elevations at parapet level, there is a rectangular stone tablet at parapet level in the projecting bay which also has a pair of long wood double-hung sash windows with 9 panes over 15
• On the north elevation wood sash windows with a pattern of 9 panes over 12
East Addition (1956)
• The placement and orientation of the one-storey extension to the east side of the main school building aligned with the internal, east-west, circulation of the original school building
• The landscaped setting with lawns and trees on the south side of the property in front of the school complex and the open space on the east, north and west sides of the property
• The scale, form and massing of the one-storey extension with its split gable roof permitting the creation of clerestorey windows, the bay window on the south elevation, the projecting flat-roofed extension to the east
• On the south elevation, the arrangement of openings including the recessed entry, the classroom window which include tall windows with six narrow glazed sections, and a seventh section which includes a door with a transom light, the small square window on the south elevation with its pattern of square and diagonal glazing bars and the bay window with its brick base, flat roof and glazed window sections divided into three sections, flanked by two on either side of the bay
• On the north elevation the pattern of openings including the recessed entrance, the office window adjacent with its paired glazed sections with transom lights and the two classroom windows with their six narrow glazed sections, and a seventh section which includes a door with a transom light
• The projecting end extension at the east with its windows on the east and north elevation with their four vertical sections of glazing
The school building has a later extension to the west side (1963-4) which is not included in the heritage attributes.
Notice of an objection to the proposed designations may be served on the City Clerk, Attention: Rosemary Mackenzie, Administrator, Etobicoke York Community Council, Etobicoke Civic Centre, Main Floor, 399 The West Mall, Toronto, ON M9C 2Y2 within thirty days of October 23, 2017, which is November 22, 2017. The notice must set out the reason(s) for the objection, and all relevant facts.
Dated at Toronto this 23rd day of October, 2017.
Ulli S. Watkiss
City Clerk