Royal Orchard

The place

Royal Orchard occupies the block of Markham-side Thornhill between Yonge Street on the west and Bayview Avenue on the east, with Highway 407 across the top and the East Don River valley folding around the south. Royal Orchard Boulevard runs east to west through the middle and gives the neighbourhood its name. The GO rail line that follows the valley crosses the boulevard partway along, which is why the eastern and western halves feel slightly separate.

The land was farmland and orchard before it was houses. The Heintzman House on Bay Thorn Drive, a City of Markham property that dates to the early nineteenth century, is the clearest reminder that people were living here long before the subdivision plans of the 1970s. Benjamin Thorne, the miller who gave Thornhill its name, settled in the valley just to the south in 1820, and the river that powered his mills is the same one that forms the neighbourhood’s southern edge today. Thornhill straddles Yonge Street and two cities, and Royal Orchard is firmly on the Markham side, directly across from the Vaughan neighbourhood of Yonge Uplands.

The houses

The first generation of Royal Orchard was built through the 1970s and into the 1980s. Brick two-storeys with centre halls, side-splits and long bungalows make up most of it, nearly always with an attached double garage and a front lawn deep enough for a mature maple. The lots were drawn when land was cheaper than it is now, so many are wider than anything a builder would lay out today. That width is the reason the neighbourhood has attracted a steady run of custom construction.

A new house here tends to be a full two storeys of stone and brick with a finished lower level and a rear elevation designed around the garden or the valley. Transitional elevations with steep roofs and large windows are the current norm, though flat-roofed modern designs appear on the streets nearer the ravine. On lots with a slope at the back, the design question is how to step the house down to the trees without triggering conservation authority limits. The best rebuilds keep the front setback in line with the neighbours and spend their ambition on the back.

Streets and lots

Royal Orchard Boulevard itself carries the traffic and the mid-rise condominiums near Yonge, so buyers tend to look one or two streets in. Bay Thorn Drive runs past Royal Orchard Park and the Heintzman House and is the address most people picture when they say the neighbourhood’s name. Baymark Road, Stately Way and the crescents off them hold the larger original houses and most of the rebuilds. Romfield Crescent and Stornoway Crescent sit toward the Bayview side near Bayview Lane Park.

Lots are rectangular and regular on the interior streets, often with a modest back garden and side yards wide enough for a path. The exceptions, and the addresses that command the premium, are the lots that back onto the East Don valley or onto the fairways of the Ladies’ Golf Club of Toronto. These are irregular, deeper and shaded by the tree canopy of the ravine. Mature trees are everywhere in Royal Orchard because the subdivision is now fifty years old, and the oldest streets near the valley have the fullest cover.

Living here

The neighbourhood’s green space is its best feature. Royal Orchard Park on Bay Thorn Drive has a ball diamond and playground and leads to a trail along the East Don River. Pomona Mills Park, just south across the valley off John Street, is the largest park in Markham-side Thornhill and the home of the Pomona Valley Tennis Club. Bayview Lane Park on Stornoway Crescent has a splash pad and a winter rink.

The Ladies’ Golf Club of Toronto, founded by Ada Mackenzie in 1924 with a course by Stanley Thompson, sits on Yonge Street inside the neighbourhood and remains the only private club in North America founded by women for women. Across Yonge, The Thornhill Club, also a Thompson design from 1922, hosted the 1945 Canadian Open. Shopping and dining are concentrated on Yonge Street, where the Shops on Yonge and the restaurants north and south of Royal Orchard Boulevard are a few minutes away by foot or car. Highway 407 is reached from Bayview Avenue, Highway 404 from Steeles or Highway 7, and Langstaff GO is a short drive north. Viva and York Region Transit run along Yonge to Finch Station. The Thornhill Community Centre at Bayview and John, with its arenas, pool and library, serves the neighbourhood directly. School boundaries change, so buyers should confirm designated schools with the board.

Buying and selling in Royal Orchard

Homes come up in Royal Orchard every year, but the good ones are a small subset. Original houses on interior streets trade openly and are often bought by builders or by families intending to renovate. Rebuilt houses and valley lots are a different market: they are held for a long time and sell less often, and when they do a meaningful share are placed privately before any listing appears. Buyers are typically families moving up from elsewhere in Thornhill or North York who want the lot size and the Yonge Street access without the heritage constraints of Old Thornhill.

Sellers of original houses should understand that their buyer may be valuing the land, and that condition matters less than lot width, orientation and whether the back opens onto the valley. Sellers of rebuilt houses should expect a smaller, more careful pool of buyers who compare against Bayview Glen and the estate streets of South Richvale. The register is where we start when a house here is about to change hands; add your name to it and you will hear first.

Royal Orchard is the Thornhill neighbourhood that balances convenience against quiet most evenly. It has Yonge Street on one side and the Don valley on the other, and fifty years of tree growth in between. For a buyer who wants a wide lot close to the city, it is usually the first place to look.