Observatory

The place

Observatory takes its name from the building at its centre. The neighbourhood lies between Yonge Street and Bayview Avenue in central Richmond Hill, with Major Mackenzie Drive to the north and 16th Avenue to the south, and the David Dunlap Observatory lands occupy a large part of its middle. The GO Richmond Hill rail line runs north to south along the western side of those lands, and a branch of the Rouge River crosses the area.

Alexander Marsh settled this land in 1815 and farmed it, and it stayed a farm until 1932, when Jessie Donalda Dunlap bought it and gave it to the University of Toronto as a memorial to her husband David Dunlap, a mining financier with a passion for astronomy. The observatory opened on 31 May 1935 with a 74-inch reflecting telescope, then the second largest in the world and still the largest in Canada. Light pollution ended serious research by the 1980s, and in 2008 the university sold the 75-hectare property to a developer. Richmond Hill designated it under the Ontario Heritage Act in 2009, acquired roughly 40 hectares around the buildings in 2016, and in 2019 the observatory was named a National Historic Site. The eastern portion of the lands became the Observatory Hill subdivision. The older streets around the lands were built in the 1980s and 1990s, when Richmond Hill was growing fastest.

The houses

The established streets are a cross-section of late twentieth-century suburban building: detached two-storey houses in brick, many with attached garages and bay windows, alongside semi-detached houses and rows of townhouses. Lots are conventional, and the houses were built for families rather than show. Those with larger footprints near the observatory lands have become candidates for complete interior renovation, and some have had second-storey additions and new facades.

Observatory Hill is where new construction is concentrated. Its detached houses are brick and stone two-storeys with contemporary detailing on traditional forms, with semi-detached houses and townhouses on the smaller lots, and the subdivision is planned around the park so that many streets end in green space. Along Yonge Street, condominium buildings have replaced older low-rise commercial uses and brought a different buyer to the neighbourhood’s western edge. A custom house here is unusual, but where one appears on a larger lot near the park, it tends to be designed around views of the lawns and the dome.

Streets and lots

Hillsview Drive is the observatory’s address and runs along the south side of the lands; David Dunlap Boulevard serves the park and the new subdivision, and the new streets of Observatory Hill carry astronomical names. Weldrick Road East crosses the established part of the neighbourhood, and Observatory Lane holds condominium buildings near Yonge. The addresses buyers ask for most are the Observatory Hill streets that face directly onto the park, followed by the quieter crescents of the 1980s plan.

Lots in the older streets are regular and modest; in Observatory Hill they are smaller still but compensate with the park frontage. The 40-hectare observatory grounds, with their lawns, planted woodland and the white dome rising above the trees, are the neighbourhood’s defining open space and give even ordinary streets an unusual outlook.

Living here

David Dunlap Observatory Park is the main public space. The city’s master plan treats it as a destination park, with walking trails, an amphitheatre, a great lawn, a conservatory and tennis courts planned or in progress, and the observatory itself hosts public viewing nights and an astronomy series for families. The Elvis Stojko Arena on 16th Avenue provides public skating and hockey. The Mill Pond park and the old downtown are a short drive northwest.

Shopping is on Yonge Street, where the South Hill plaza has a grocer, restaurants and services, and Hillcrest Mall is a few minutes south. The Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts on Yonge is close, and Mackenzie Health hospital is about ten minutes away. Richmond Hill GO station at Newkirk Road, near Major Mackenzie Drive, serves the northeast corner, and Viva rapid transit runs on Yonge; Highway 404 is reached by 16th Avenue or Major Mackenzie in about ten minutes, and Highway 407 is a few minutes south.

Buying and selling in Observatory

The established streets trade like most of central Richmond Hill: steady resales, families moving up or down, and a buyer pool that includes first-time detached buyers drawn by the location near Yonge and the GO line. Observatory Hill has brought a newer and somewhat wealthier buyer who wants a new house without moving to the city’s northern edge, and resales there are now beginning. The condominiums on Yonge serve downsizers and younger buyers.

Sellers of an older detached house should know that buyers compare it closely against Observatory Hill’s new product and should present the lot, the renovation and the park proximity accordingly. Sellers of a park-facing house in Observatory Hill hold the neighbourhood’s scarcest asset and should treat it that way. If you are watching this neighbourhood, join the private register and we will tell you when something is about to come up, listed or not.

Few neighbourhoods anywhere are built around a telescope. Observatory’s combination of a National Historic Site, a large new park and new houses in the middle of an established city makes it one of Richmond Hill’s more unusual places to live, and one whose character is still being written.