Spadina House
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Spadina House (built 1866) is a historic manor on Spadina Road in Toronto, Canada that is now a museum; signs directing traffic and pedestrians to the house now call it Spadina Museum.
It was built by James Austin, founder of The Dominion Bank and Consumers Gas, on land that had previously been owned by Toronto's noted Baldwin family. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century the area was the wealthiest in Toronto, with a number of Toronto's leading families having large estates.
The house is at the southern end of the northern section of Spadina Road, on top of Davenport Hill, an escarpment which was the shore of prehistoric Lake Iroquois. Immediately east was Sir John Craig Eaton and Lady Flora McCrea Eaton's massive Italianate palace and estate, Ardwold. Just around the corner on Austin Terrace, on the lot adjacent to Spadina House's, is Casa Loma, a stately pile built in 1911 by Sir Henry Mill Pellatt.
The last member of the family to live in the house was Anna Kathleen Thompson who lived there until 1982. The aged house had outdated wiring and needed a thorough overhaul, that would have been far more expensive than rebuilding it. While the house could have been sold to private interests such as the Keg Restaurant, the family decided instead to donate it to the city. In 1984 it opened as a museum, jointly operated by the city and the Ontario Heritage Foundation. The museum is especially known for its gardens. The family still keeps some links with the house and celebrations such as weddings are held there.
Many Torontonians follow a convention of pronouncing Spadina Road "Spad[aɪ]na" and Spadina House "Spadeena"; however, it is not uncommon to hear Spadina Road pronounced "Spadeena" as well. South of Bloor Street, however, Spadina Road becomes Spadina Avenue, which is always pronounced "Spad[aɪ]na". The distinction between "Spad[aɪ]na" and "Spadeena" was once an economic class marker in Toronto, with the upper classes favouring "Spadeena", but is less so today.
[edit] References
- Thompson, Austin Seton. Spadina Story of Old Toronto Pagurian Press, 1975
