Oak Ridges & Lake Wilcox

The place

Oak Ridges is the top of Richmond Hill. It sits on the Oak Ridges Moraine, the ridge of glacial sand and gravel that divides the rivers flowing to Lake Ontario from those flowing north, and most of the ground stands above 300 metres. Yonge Street runs through its centre; King City lies to the west, Aurora to the north and Whitchurch-Stouffville to the east. Jefferson and Westbrook are its neighbours to the south.

The settlement began in 1799, when a group of French royalists led by the Comte de Puisaye were granted land along Yonge Street and named their colony Windham. It lasted only a few years, and by 1840 the place was known as Oak Ridges. In the early twentieth century the Schomberg and Aurora Railway kept a station near Bond Lake, which had a park and a hotel for day-trippers from Toronto. Lake Wilcox, to the east of Yonge, became a cottage lake in the 1920s and then a year-round community; its east shore holds the oldest known Iroquoian site in Richmond Hill. Oak Ridges remained part of King and Whitchurch townships until 1971, when the creation of York Region moved it into Richmond Hill. Housing grew around the lake from the 1950s to the late 1980s, and the newer subdivisions along Bathurst, Yonge and Bloomington followed.

The houses

No other part of Richmond Hill has this much variety. Around the lake are small frame cottages, 1950s bungalows and later ranch, Tudor and neo-colonial houses, often on lots that would be three or four parcels in a modern subdivision. West of Yonge are 1970s and 1980s detached houses on wooded streets. The Fontainbleu area north of the lake was built as an upscale enclave, and the Kettle Lakes Club to the south is a large townhouse community. Along Bathurst Street and Bloomington Road the newest subdivisions are conventional two-storey brick houses.

The custom-build story is concentrated near the water. Cottages and bungalows are bought for their land and replaced with large houses in brick, stone or stucco, frequently with three-car garages, gated drives and, on the lake, boathouses and docks. On the lake itself the house is designed around the view and the water: glass toward the lake, terraces stepping down to the shore, a walk-out lower level. On the inland streets, builders take advantage of the slopes and the trees, and a well-sited new house here can feel as if it is in the country rather than in a city of 200,000 people.

Streets and lots

Lakefront is the first ask. Lakeland Crescent and North Lake Road carry the best-known waterfront addresses, and Wildwood Avenue and the streets behind the park are the short walk to the shore that many buyers settle for. Pheasant Drive and the wooded streets west of Yonge represent the inland alternative, with large irregular lots under mature oak and pine. Olde Bayview Avenue, where Lake Wilcox Park sits, is the public face of the lake.

Lots here are rarely regular. Many are long and narrow toward the water, others are near-acre parcels that have never been divided, and some back directly onto conservation land. Tree cover is heavy, with oak, maple and white pine, and the terrain is genuinely hilly. The best addresses combine water, privacy and a lot wide enough for a house that does not feel squeezed.

Living here

Lake Wilcox Park on the east shore has a waterfront promenade, a boardwalk into the water, a playground and a splash pad, and the Oak Ridges Community Centre beside it, completed in 2012, has a six-lane pool and a gymnasium overlooking the lake. Bond Lake Arena on Old Colony Road provides ice. The Oak Ridges Corridor conservation lands around Bond Lake and the east side of Lake Wilcox hold an extensive network of hiking and mountain-biking trails, and the Jefferson Forest immediately south adds more. Several private golf courses sit at the neighbourhood’s edges, with the Summit Golf and Country Club on Yonge Street the nearest.

Shopping along Yonge Street is spread out and still filling in, with plazas, groceries and restaurants rather than a single centre; the downtown core and Mill Pond are about ten minutes south. Viva Blue rapid transit runs along Yonge from Finch station to Newmarket, with stops along Yonge through Oak Ridges. Gormley and Bloomington GO stations are on the Richmond Hill line, and Highway 404 is reached by Bloomington or Stouffville Road.

Buying and selling in Oak Ridges & Lake Wilcox

The market here has two speeds. Conventional houses in the newer subdivisions trade like the rest of Richmond Hill. Lakefront and large inland lots trade rarely, often privately, and at prices set as much by the land and the view as by the house standing on it. Buyers for the lake include families leaving the planned subdivisions of Bayview Hill and Markham for space, Toronto buyers who want a cottage they can commute from, and builders assembling sites.

Sellers of an original cottage or bungalow should understand that the buyer is almost certainly pricing the lot, and that shoreline, setbacks and conservation regulations will shape what can be built; having that information in hand helps. Sellers of a finished lakefront house are in one of the thinnest and most valuable segments in York Region, and discretion often serves them better than exposure. Tell us what you are looking for and we will send matches, including homes that never reach the portals.

Oak Ridges is where Richmond Hill stops being suburban. The lake, the moraine and the protected land around them are permanent, and the houses being built on the old cottage lots are the city’s closest equivalent to country estates.