Thornhill Woods Homes

Thornhill Woods is destined to become Thornhill’s most desirable address. Nestled in the heart of it all, Thornhill Woods is a grand scale community of woodlands and parks surrounded by all the amenities your family could want. There’s a wide variety of home styles to choose from here including luxury semi-detached and detached homes on 36’ & 42’ lots. Fieldgate’s Thornhill Woods is surrounded by a multitude of amenities including The Promenade Mall, hospitals, The Richmond Hill Golf & Country Club across the street and a new Jewish Community Centre planned nearby.

Thornhill Woods is one of many new suburban developments springing up north of the established Thornhill-Vaughan suburbs. It is defined as the area bordered by Highway 7, Bathurst Street, Dufferin Road and Major Mackenzie Drive. Since its establishment, the area has been experiencing immense growth and lots of changes. This neighbourhood has grown into a strong neighbourhood to raise a family with excellent schools and community events.

Thornhill Woods is primarily home to young married couples and families, forming its reputation as a family community. The south part of the subdivision (below Rutherford Road) is filled with new homes, from clusters of townhouses to areas with detached double-garage homes. As of June 2007, there are no apartment buildings in Thornhill Woods; however, plans for their construction have been approved.

According to Monica Auerbach, Jewish Family & Child, Director of York Region Services, "Generally a couple will move from a rental apartment in Toronto to owning a small townhouse in Thornhill Woods, and then move to a bigger detached home also in the area. In this sense, Thornhill Woods is very transitional."

For the most part, families who have purchased homes in Thornhill Woods have done so because they can afford a brand new house for an acceptable price. However, prices are rising.

Demographics
In the past five years Thornhill Woods has grown tremendously. In the 2001 census the population was 6,190, a number which almost tripled by 2006, reaching 16,100. The number of private dwellings has followed suit, increasing from just fewer than 2,000 in 2001 to over 5,000 in 2006. City of Vaughan development planners indicate that construction below Rutherford Road is nearly completed; however, plans have been approved to develop the area above Rutherford Road for residential and commercial uses.

This growth is largely due to trends in the Jewish population, which seems to slowly move further north on Bathurst. Anecdotal evidence suggests that somewhere between 60 and 70 percent of the population in Thornhill Woods is Jewish, although statistics will be unable to confirm this until the 2011 census.

Auerback noticed that "There is significant diversity, both of culture and language, as new immigrants continue to move to Thornhill Woods." The Jewish background in the area is also very mixed, representing different groups including Russian, Sephardic, Israeli and South African Jews.

According to Thornhill Woods resident Jack Zarek, there is "a large concentration of [young] Jewish families" in the area who have moved into their first or second homes. Most of these families have small children and so it is common for a child to have other Jewish friends living on his or her street.

"Thornhill Woods is one of the fastest growing Jewish communities in the world," says Bryan Keshen, Executive Director, Schwartz/Reisman Centre.

Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Jewish Community Campus
UJA Federation has pinpointed Thornhill Woods as an area with tremendous potential for further Jewish growth. UJA Federation's Tomorrow Campaign has already begun construction of the Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Jewish Community Campus. The community campus is being built on 50 acres (over 200,000 square meters) of land in the north part of Thornhill Woods just above Rutherford Road. The first element of the complex, the TanenbaumCHAT-Kimel Family Education Centre opened its doors in September 2007. Plans are in place for the Schwartz/Reisman Centre, a 67,000 square foot facility housing a sports and recreation pavilion, early childhood education centre and a creative arts centre.

History Of Thornhill:

Thornhill (population is about 108,000) is an upscale community in the Greater Toronto Area in southern Ontario, Canada, located on the northern border of the City of Toronto. Once a municipal village, Thornhill is now a community and postal designation geographically split into two municipalities, Vaughan, west of Yonge Street, and the town of Markham, east of Yonge. According to the 2001 Census, the population of the Thornhill-Vaughan was 56,361, and the population of Thornhill-Markham was 47,333.

Early History

Thornhill was founded in 1794. Its first settlers on Yonge Street in Thornhill were Asa Johnson (who settled on the Vaughan side) and Nicholas Miller (who settled on the Markham side). Of particular importance was the arrival of Benjamin Thorne in 1820, who was operating a gristmill, a sawmill, and a tannery in the community. The settlement came to be known as Thorne's Mills, and later, Thorne's Hill, from which its current name is derived. (Thorne committed suicide in 1848, after a serious wheat market crash.)

Between 1830 and 1848, Thornhill experienced a period of continued growth and prosperity. The business district of Thornhill developed on its portion of Yonge Street, between Centre Street and John Street. Stagecoaches travelled between Holland Landing (Lake Simcoe) and York (Toronto) as Yonge Street's road conditions improved with new stonework. During this prosperous period, several churches, many of which are still standing today, were constructed.

Thornhill's location along Yonge Street, a major transportation route, proved to be beneficial to the community's growth throughout much of the twentieth century. The implementation of an electric street railway along Yonge Street in 1898 towards Kleinburg, Georgina, King and Toronto meant that, for the first time, it was possible for people to reside in Thornhill and work in Toronto. By the 1920s, the prevalence of the automobile further facilitated travel along Yonge Street.

20th century

In 1931, Thornhill became a "Police Village"; before that time, Thornhill had no independent status and was split between the townships of Vaughan and Markham along Yonge Street, since the creation of municipal government in 1850. Before 1931, each township administered its own half of the village. The creation of the Police Village gave Thornhill its own political boundaries. The village was headed by a reeve.

In 1971, York Region was created, part of a wave of municipal re-organization which converted many townships into towns and eliminated many of the municipal forms of organization which had existed within those townships. The establishment of a regional administration effectively eliminated the Police Village of Thornhill. Thornhill's administration reverted to the newly formed towns of Markham and Vaughan at this time.

However, many political and social institutions remained organized around the former municipal entities eliminated in 1971. Like neighbouring communities such as Woodbridge, Maple, and Unionville -- as is typical for most urbanized former Greater Toronto Area (GTA) villages outside of the City of Toronto -- Thornhill remained the postal designation for addresses within the former village's boundaries, and community organizations such as local newspapers, sports teams, and schools continued to operate under the Thornhill name and designation. As an example, until the mid-1990s residents of Thornhill seeking to play high-level hockey were required to play for a Thornhill team.

While the old village of Thornhill revolved around Yonge Street between Centre and John Streets, the community is typically thought to be located between Dufferin Street to the west, Highway 7 to the north, Steeles Avenue to the south, and Highway 404 to the east.

Suburbanization

Thornhill's growth since the 1960s and 1970s has been largely connected to its location bordering what is now the City of Toronto. Large housing developments, particularly beginning in the 1980s with such projects as the Tannenbaum family's Spring Farm area near Bathurst and Clark. Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto, a large synagogue named after developer and benefactor Joseph Tannenbaum, is an example of an innovative twist on the "anchor tenant" approach adopted by some residential developers.

Growth has continued apace. For instance, an "uptown" village denoted as Thornhill Town Centre, is being developed at the corner of Bathurst and Centre Street, forming a continuous line of development north from the Promenade Shopping Centre also near Bathurst and Clark, whose massive parking lot is dotted by an increasing number of condominium buildings and stand-alone retail plazas.

Expansion

The territory thought to constitute Thornhill has recently begun to expand northward in Thornhill-Vaughan, particularly west of Bathurst, due to the marketing initiatives of residential developers. A new area called "Thornhill Woods" was developed between Highway 7, Rutherford, Bathurst, and Dufferin. Another planned development, "Upper Thornhill Estates", extends well to the north of Major Mackenzie. In 2008 the City of Vaughan opened the North Thornhill Community Centre, a new community centre to serve this population.

However, it should be noted that the area being labelled as "Upper" or "North" Thornhill is more traditionally part of Maple, another former village converted to a community when the Township of Vaughan was converted to a town. Other developments taking place in these new areas include Eagle Hills/Mackenzie Chase/Thornberry Woods at Dufferin and Major Mackenzie. Coronation and Roxborough is being developed at Upper Bathurst between Rutherford Road and Major Mackenzie. The Vaughan planning area that includes Block 18 (East Maple), Block 11 (Thornhill/Maple), Block 12 (Upper Thornhill/Maple) and Block 10 (Thornhill Woods) is expected to grow substantially over the next few years. This area is known as the "Carrville District".