Another of the great projects from unbuilt Windsor. This one was to be located in South Windsor, the original planned Villa Maria home for the aged and orphaned.
Here is a more refined rendering to go with the sketch above. News of the project appeared in the paper February 1, 1929, but was announced the night before, 82 years ago to the day.
Plans for the unbuilt project were drawn up by Pennignton & Boyde.
A subdivision advertisement shows where the planned building was to have been located.
According to the article, the structure would have been situated on 21 acres, and was designed to serve the needs of Essex and Kent counties for the next 25 years. Even though it was never built there is still a Villa Maria Boulevard in South Windsor, which I suspect marked the southern end of the property.
Ground was broken on the main building, but why it was never built I don’t know. There were many ad’s for the fundraising drive for Villa Maria, but an article from April 1929 about the awarding of the contract for the excavation, had this to say:
This week a drive for $500,000 is being carried on throughout Essex County to raise funds to defray the expenditure which will be entailed by by the construction of Villa Maria.
“Regardless of the results of the drive,” Mr. Boyde said, “we are going to get started. The financing has already been arranged.”
Interestingly enough, Villa Maria eventually came to be, albeit much differently and in a different location. The Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph’s (who ran Hotel Dieu) website tells this story:
The three separate homes presented disadvantages and the decision was made to begin construction of a new seniors’s residence. The official opening of the Villa Maria residence was held September 23, 1956. The attractive two-story building on the shores of the Detroit River has a capacity of 120 beds. In 2003, the Ontario government decided to close Villa-Maria Residence.
This building, now a student residence was the Villa Maria nursing home. It was also designed by J.C. Pennington. The history above also answers questions about this house, we looked at in July.
There are some amazing buildings that never came to be in the boom years of the late 1920’s.
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Very interesting post Andrew - I had no idea of this history. Thank you!
Mr. Boyle sounds like the contractor for the Grace Hospital building...
And the student residence is now closed.
Although it's hard to see on this map, I wonder if the street (to the right of St. Mary's that crosses Cabana near this proposed site) is Richardie. I've often wondered about this street - an odd street that seems to meander across south Windsor. Could it have been a county road that perhaps followed a creek prior to any development?
I notice in the background of the Kinsey Doyle Windsor manor ad, Huron Line is again refered to as the "Huron Super Highway", we saw that in another ad here from around the same time a couple of weeks ago.
Jane, it is marked as Richardie.
I don't know if it was following anything, I just think it was a meandering road created by the developers.
If you look on Google maps you can follow Richardie, the northern end of Maisonneuve Ave at Norfolk it has the first 100 yards named as Richardie, it then sporadiacally continues past a Central and Curry parks through to the southern end just south of Cabana west of Askin.
Looking at the conceptual map it shows the facility to be south of Cabana Rd. Today, travelling south on Mt. Royal, the first two crossroads are Villa Maria N., and Villa Maria S.
That's very true Bruce, interesting little piece of info!
No one probably had any clue, I sure didn't.
That would have been one spectacular project.
It looks like it would have covered the current Mt. Royal Street, with most of it covering where the residential streets of Eden and Churchill are now located(these are the streets running west behind Mt. Royal between Villa Maria North and South). Based on its size, the grounds likely would have extended westward onto what is now the St. Clair College property.
I wonder if they even broke ground before the stock market crash hit in the fall.