Angus Glen

The place

Angus Glen sits in north Markham between Warden Avenue and Kennedy Road, with 16th Avenue to the south and Major Mackenzie Drive to the north. The golf club occupies the centre and the houses wrap around it, with Angus Glen Boulevard running east to west through the community and the community centre at the Major Mackenzie end.

The land was a farm. Arthur Stollery, a mining entrepreneur, bought it in 1957 to raise cattle and thoroughbred horses, and for more than two decades Angus Glen bred racehorses that won in Canada and abroad. His son Gordon Stollery turned the farm into a golf club, opening the South Course in 1995, and the following year began building a community around it. The East Village, roughly five hundred houses and townhouses, was built in the late 1990s on New Urbanist principles; the West Village followed from the mid-2000s. The North Course opened in 2001, and the club hosted the Canadian Open in 2002 and 2007 and the golf competition of the 2015 Pan American Games. Gordon Stollery died in 2011, and the community his family began is now essentially complete.

The houses

The houses were built by a single master developer, Kylemore Communities, and that shows in the consistency of the streetscape. The East Village is heritage-inflected: steep roofs, front porches, clapboard and brick, with garages set back or accessed from rear lanes so the street is houses rather than garage doors. Bruce Creek Drive, with its Victorian-styled houses completed in the early 2000s, is the clearest expression of the idea. Lots are moderate and the houses are close enough to make the streets feel like a village.

The West Village is larger in every dimension. Houses are substantial two-storeys in stone and brick on wider lots, with attached garages and deeper setbacks, and the architectural controls still hold the palette together. A small number of estate houses sit on the golf course itself, and the developer’s mid-rise condominium project, The 6th, brought a new form of housing to the edge of the fairways in the late 2010s. Because the oldest houses are barely twenty-five years old and the design controls are strict, full teardowns are rare; the market here is for renovation and finishing rather than replacement.

Streets and lots

Angus Glen Boulevard is the main street and carries the townhouses and the bus route through to the community centre. Bruce Creek Drive is the most asked-for address in the East Village. In the West Village, the crescents and courts between the boulevard and the golf course hold the largest houses, and the lots that back onto fairways or onto Bruce Creek are the premium addresses.

Lots in the East Village are narrow and deep in the New Urbanist manner, with small front gardens and rear lanes. West Village lots are wider and more conventional. Across the community, the distinguishing feature of the best addresses is the golf course or the creek at the back: an open green view that the plan guarantees will not be built on. Street trees were planted with the houses and have reached a good size in the East Village, while the West Village canopy is still filling in.

Living here

The Angus Glen Community Centre and Library at 3990 Major Mackenzie Drive East opened in 2004 and remains one of the best-equipped facilities in the region, with a pool, two rinks, indoor tennis courts and a library branch that holds the largest collection in Markham. Its design won an Ontario Association of Architects award. The golf club offers two championship courses, dining and events, and Bruce Creek and the baseball park give the East Village its open space. The William Berczy historic cemetery, with graves of Markham’s first settlers, lies just to the east on Kennedy Road.

Shopping is on Kennedy Road and 16th Avenue, with the Unionville village restaurants and the Markville Shopping Centre a short drive south. York Region Transit runs along Angus Glen Boulevard to the community centre, and Highway 404 is reached via 16th Avenue or Major Mackenzie. Unionville GO is a few minutes south on the Stouffville line. Downtown Toronto is roughly forty-five minutes by car outside rush hour. School boundaries change, so buyers should confirm designated schools with the board.

Buying and selling in Angus Glen

Houses in the East Village come to market steadily and sell openly, with clear comparables because the designs repeat. West Village houses and golf course lots trade less often, and the largest of them are sometimes sold privately to buyers who have registered their interest with an agent or with the developer’s own network. Buyers are predominantly families, many drawn by the golf club or the community centre, and a share come from Unionville and Cachet looking for a newer house in a planned setting.

Sellers should know that the architectural consistency works in their favour: buyers trust the construction and compare on finish, lot position and view. A house backing onto the course or Bruce Creek should be presented from the back garden first. Sellers of East Village houses should emphasise the walkable streets and the porches, which are the features that distinguish Angus Glen from the conventional subdivisions nearby. Buyers comparing with Cachet will find Angus Glen newer and more uniform, and with Unionville will find it quieter and more planned. Tell us what you are looking for and we will send matches, including homes that never reach the portals.

Angus Glen is a rare thing in the suburbs: a community built by one family around one idea, and finished the way it was drawn. The golf course is the centre, the community centre is the civic heart, and the streets between them were designed to be lived on. For a buyer who wants a planned neighbourhood with a real identity, it has few equals in York Region.