631 and 633 Davenport Rd. hosted a hardware store, cancer care club

By Mike Mastromatteo

Adjoining homes on the southeast corner of Davenport and Howland—an area once known as Bracondale—have a curious history coloured by the many lives and experiences that graced the homes over the last 140 years. (But the “walls” column parameters are wide and are not reserved for houses with dramatic histories.)

Designed in the neo-Gothic Victorian style, 631 and 633 Davenport for many years had no real addresses. Municipal directories from 1885 until 1914 only refer to the general location of the homes at the southeast corner of Davenport and Howland. It wasn’t until 1914 that the properties acquired the numbers 631 and 633 Davenport Rd.

The house at 631 Davenport has a prosaic enough beginning. One of the first occupants was a Frederick J. Nicholson (1915), whose occupation remains a mystery. He lived there until Alex Christie, a chauffeur for the T. Eaton Co., took up residency in 1918. Charles Wood, identified as a driver in the municipal directory, lived in the house from 1919 until about 1922.

For the next 28 years, the house was owned by Mrs. Emily Pilkington, widow of William, a labourer, who passed away around 1920.

Emily Pilkington raised two sons and two daughters in the home. The most notable, perhaps, was William Jr. (1919-1977), a graduate of Oakwood Collegiate, who served for many years as a cadet, sergeant, and inspector with the Toronto Police Force. William Jr. toiled with the morality squad on the force and was often quoted in newspaper articles about the decline of decency and morality in the Toronto of the 1950s and 60s.  

A Toronto Daily Star article from Dec. 21, 1967 featured the following lead paragraph: “‘A

weird, LSD-taking cult that thrived in Yorkville recently drove many hippies into mental hospitals,’ Inspector William Pilkington of the Metro police morality squad said today.”

Presumably, the walls within Pilkington’s childhood home at number 631 readily glommed to the fact that he would become a law-and-order man.

During the Second World War, William was active with the Royal Canadian Air Force 415th Squadron. He joined the Toronto Police in 1945 and later became chief of police in Whitby, Ontario, from 1968 through to 1973. Pilkington died April 14, 1977, at age 58. 

With the Pilkington family era’s passing at 631 Davenport, a number of short-term owner/occupants took over the property. 

Andrejs Vaivods, a die finisher at De Havilland Aircraft, resided there in 1953, and salesman Lloyd McIntyre owned the property from 1955-1956. By the late 1950s, the house became a rooming home. It was vacant in 1958, but by the next year, Tauno Korhonen, an employee with the federal government had moved in. 

Owner/occupants in the 1960s included Horace E. Roe, an employee of Canada Metal Ltd. and William Grimes, whose occupation escaped notice by the compilers of the municipal directories.

Other later owners/occupants include bank manager Paul Stain (1977) and Andy Freemark, possibly a real estate agent, in 1985-86

The house at 633 Davenport, much like its conjoined twin, also had some interesting characters dwelling within. Engineer James Turner resided there in 1915, followed by painter Percy Wheeler in the mid-1920s.

633 Davenport was a hardware store for its first 20 years. The interior was then renovated to serve as a proper two-storey home for a single family. 

The name Harniman is closely connected to the history of number 633. 

Hardware proprietor and builder James Harniman and wife Jane lived there from 1890 until about 1898. James,  however, must have passed away before the turn of the century, as the 1900 municipal directory lists Jane Harniman as residing at 14 Follis Ave., the home of her brother-in-law, Alfred.

Curiously, another Harniman, Alfred, opened a hardware store in 1908 at 937 Bathurst St., just a little southwest of the Davenport store. Alfred, and a host of other Harnimans, including widow Jane, all lived together at 667 Manning Ave. from 1908 to 1910.

TTC mechanic Duncan Campbell occupied the home for 15 years from 1925 until 1940. His widow Jean was there until about 1950. As a TTC mechanic, one wonders if Duncan made the daily walk to the TTC barns on Bathurst, just south of Davenport, to tend to bus and streetcar mechanical problems.

One last anecdote about 633 Davenport—one that “walls” readers would no doubt appreciate—involves its time in the early 1980s as headquarters for the volunteer-run Cancer Club of Toronto. 

The club was an information centre and support organization for patients undergoing treatment for various forms of the affliction. 

It was operated by Sherry Bate, herself a cancer survivor, who for years lobbied for increased treatment options for cancer patients.

Andres Watson, the current owner of 633 Davenport and executor for the next-door property, has a special interest in seeing the houses survive the passage of time and condo development. He inherited the estate from his late mother Kulli Milles and has since operated the home as a rooming house for students and other tenants.

“Both interiors are almost time capsules,” Watson said in reference to their older interior design and building materials. He would like the homes to be designated as heritage properties. His fervent hope is that they will not be torn down and replaced by a new edifice totally at odds with the history and character of other old homes in the neighbourhood.

“I need help in getting it listed by Heritage Toronto,” Watson told the Gleaner. “I also want a buyer who will restore the house—not someone who will gut and renovate it. I want to sell the house to someone who loves and cares for the preservation of an original Victorian. I get to choose the buyer, and no house flipper or renovators need ever enter the house.”

READ MORE:

• IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK: Before the Maddy was a pub it was a mansion (Dec. 2025)
• IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK: 351 Palmerston Blvd. (Oct./Nov. 2025)
• HISTORY: If these walls could talk (Sept. 2025)