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Address:
Colborne Lodge Drive (at The Queensway)
Phone:
(416)
392-6916
Hours:
Fri: noon-4pm
Sat -Sun: noon-5pm
(subject to change)
Admission/fees:
adults
$3.50;
seniors and youth 13-18 years $2.75; children 12 and under
$2.50.
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Overview Tips
 Once dubbed "Howard’s Folly" because of its
long distance from 1837 Toronto,
Colborne Lodge today offers a peaceful sanctuary within
Canada’s largest,
most exciting city.
With its stately verandas, informal planning and attractive
placement in a
beautiful setting, Colborne Lodge is a splendid example of
Regency-style
architecture, which swept the continent in the early 19th
century. Its
dominant living room boasts three-sided south-facing bay
windows overlooking
a verdant garden landscape. While its interior is centered
on a massive chimney,
featuring three tall stacks, the whole capped by a penthouse
master bedroom.
 The distinctive manor was completed as a suburban getaway
in 1837 by John
Howard (1803-90) and named for the English-trained architect’s
first patron,
Upper Canada Lieutenant-Governor, Sir John Colborne. Besides
having success as an architect, Howard was also a shrewd
investor who purchased the adjacent 160-acre site with a
vision to develop a new satellite village. But it seems he
was ahead of his time. For Torontonians were not ready to
purchase his far-off subdivisions. But Howard's loss became
Toronto’s gain, as he donated the land after his death to
form the present-day heart of High Park, a beautifully
maintained, 400-acre urban oasis.
Saved from the wrecker’s ball by a group of
community-minded women in
 1925, Colborne Lodge was most recently restored in the
1960s by the Toronto
Historical Board, which today operates the year-round
interpretive center as
"a furnished museum for the city." No outing to
High Park would be complete
without a visit.
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