Westbrook

The place

Westbrook occupies the northwest quarter of central Richmond Hill, between Bathurst Street and Yonge Street, with Elgin Mills Road to the south and Gamble Road to the north. The ground rises gently northward onto the Oak Ridges Moraine, and two watercourses, the East Don River and a tributary of the Rouge, cut wooded valleys through it. The old Mill Pond district lies immediately south, and Jefferson immediately north.

The land was farmed from the early 1800s. Twickenham Park, the neighbourhood’s largest green space, takes its name from a farm bought in 1836 by Captain Lawrence Smith and his wife, English emigrants who entertained Toronto society there before returning to England in 1844; their son Larratt Smith stayed and became vice-chancellor of the University of Toronto. A short distance east, on Yonge Street near Elgin Mills, stood the farm of Thomas Kinnear, whose murder in 1843 along with his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery became one of Upper Canada’s most notorious cases and the basis of Margaret Atwood’s novel Alias Grace; a small park in the neighbourhood carries the book’s name. Subdivision came late. Westbrook was planned and built in phases from the 1990s onward, which is why its houses are young and its tree canopy is still maturing except along the ravines.

The houses

The stock is remarkably consistent: detached two-storey houses in red, brown and buff brick with stone detailing, double garages, four or five bedrooms and open main floors. Builders drew on Georgian and French-country forms, with gables, arched windows and stone surrounds, and most houses sit on lots a size up from the subdivisions south of Major Mackenzie. Townhouses and semi-detached houses are concentrated near Bathurst and Yonge.

The houses are too new for teardowns to be common, so the custom activity takes two forms. On the ravine courts, owners rebuild interiors, add rear glass and terraces facing the valley and finish walk-out lower levels. On the handful of larger parcels, a few genuinely custom houses have been built in stone and dark-framed glass, and more are likely as the first generation of owners moves on. A new build in Westbrook tends to be designed from the back: the valley, the trees and the slope are the view, and the plan opens toward them.

Streets and lots

The requests are for the ravine courts and crescents. Burndean Court, Westbury Court, Eagle Peak Drive and Gamble Glen Crescent are among the names that recur, and Canyon Hill Avenue runs along Twickenham Park. Courts are prized because they carry no traffic and because pie-shaped lots widen toward the back, where the trees are.

Lots in the body of the subdivision are rectangular and generous; those backing onto the East Don valley or the Rouge tributary are the largest and most irregular, and some fall away steeply enough to give a full walk-out level. The ravines are the neighbourhood’s defining feature, with mature maple, oak and cedar along the slopes, and conservation authority rules govern what can be built near them. The best address here is a court lot on the ravine with a southern or western exposure over the valley.

Living here

Twickenham Park has a trail along the Don, a pond, a wildflower meadow, a playground and picnic areas, and it links to the Trans Richmond Trail, which follows the river valleys for several kilometres through wooded land. Smaller parks are spread through the subdivision: Larratt Lea Park, Toll Bar Park, Rouge Crest Park, Alias Grace Park and a number of parkettes. The Elgin West Community Centre and Pool on Bathurst Street has a leisure pool and an ice rink.

Elgin Mills Centre at Yonge and Elgin Mills is the nearest shopping, with plazas along Bathurst for groceries and services, and the restaurants of the downtown core are a few minutes south on Yonge. The Yonge-Bernard terminal, a York Region Transit hub, sits near Yonge and Elgin Mills, and Viva Blue runs along Yonge to Finch station. Highway 404 is reached by Elgin Mills Road in about ten minutes, and Highway 400 by Rutherford or King Road to the west. Mackenzie Health hospital and the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts are both within a short drive.

Buying and selling in Westbrook

Houses in the body of the subdivision resell regularly as families grow or move on, and the market is active and comparable: buyers look at several similar houses and pay for finish, basement and garden. Ravine properties are a different matter. They come up infrequently, draw buyers from across York Region and are often sold to someone who has asked to be told the moment one is available. Buyers are mostly established families, many moving up within Richmond Hill, and a steady share are relocating from Toronto for the schools and the space.

Sellers of a ravine house should lead with the valley: the view, the trees, the privacy and the walk-out are what the premium is for. Sellers of a standard house should expect close comparison and present accordingly. Tell us what you are looking for and we will send matches, including homes that never reach the portals.

Westbrook is a young neighbourhood on old farmland, and its ravines give it a permanence the houses have yet to earn. For a family that wants a newer house with woods behind it, inside the city and near Yonge Street, it is the obvious place to look.