Villa Park – Cotswolds Affair

Wychwood Park is probably my favorite park in Toronto.

Like any normal park, it offers the usual calm and tranquility to the residents around Davenport and Bathurst.

Unlike other Toronto parks, Wychwood Park is a “villa” park, showcasing Toronto’s most unique century old residential architectures.

Upland Cottage was designed by Canadian artist / architect George Reid. In a way, without the adventurism of people like Reid, fellow architect like Eden Smith, and lawyer Du Vernet (more about him next post), Wychwood would not be the villa park, the way it is today.

Reid, growing up on the farmlands of Wingham, Ontario, wanted to create his version, of the English Cotswold cottage, perhaps something rustic, that would remind him of home after his move to Toronto.

Surrounded by cream colored stucco, are decorative dark brown wood timber windows. With its irregular roof and steep gables across two stories, the cottage, although quite big and wide, appears long and low.

It is an enlarged English cottage in “True North” Canadian style, an “Upland” Cottage.

81 Wychwood Park, Toronto