Windfields is a predominantly upper-middle income neighbourhood that has traditionally been popular with young families. This neighbourhood has many fine attributes including well treed streets, spacious family size houses, an abundance of parkland, a good selection of schools and convenient access to Highway 401.
Windfields includes a maze of curvilinear streets that twist and wind until they either abruptly end at a local park or ravine, or spill out onto one of the major arterial roads that skirt this neighbourhood. The net effect is that traffic is kept to a minimum and the streets have a suburban child friendly feel to them that suggests a game of road hockey could be played out reasonably uninterrupted by the intrusion of motorists.
History of Windfields
The Windfields neighbourhood is located on the former site of Windfields Farm, after which this neighbourhood is named. Windfields Farm was the former estate of E.P. Taylor the legendary Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist.
Windfields Farm was founded in 1937. It was Taylor’s wife Winnifred who came up with the “Windfields” name while the couple were out walking on their property during a windy autumn day. In its heyday Windfields Farm was famous as one of the top thoroughbred racing stables in North America. Its stable of horses included Northern Dancer, the first Canadian horse to win the Kentucky Derby.
In 1963, an increasingly private E.P. Taylor moved his main residence to Lyford Cay in the Bahamas. In 1968, he sold most of his Windfields estate to developers. At the same time he donated thirty acres of land for what is now Windfields Park.
E.P. Taylor’s Windfields mansion located at 2489 Bayview Avenue, was also gifted to the city by the Taylor family in 1968. This Colonial Revival style mansion is now the home of the Canadian Centre for Advanced Film Studies, which opened its doors in 1988. E.P. Taylor passed away at his home in Lyford Cay in 1989.
