One of Toronto’s enthusiastic architectural conservationists, Kent Rawson, generously gave me access to his research concerning late nineteenth-century advertisements in Toronto newspapers, specifically, lists of architectural calls for tender. This was most helpful in verifying Lennox’s responsibility for particular buildings and in assigning dates to them, especially when dealing with the early part of Lennox’s career.
Early Toronto city records were searched, and on-site investigation of extant buildings was undertaken. The buildings (including the interior of Lennox’s own home) were photographed. Photographs of destroyed buildings have been reproduced from material such as books, periodicals, slides, and negatives held by various public and private institutions. More than one hundred photographs of Lennox’s buildings were amassed.
Most of the buildings I could verify as Lennox’s works are included in the text and are discussed chronologically; his additions and/or renovations to buildings, unless of major importance to Toronto or indicative of a change in stylistic orientation, are not discussed. Dates assigned to buildings were based on Lennox’s architectural drawings, building permits, calls for tender, listings in city directories, letters, transcripts, and architectural specifications. If no such evidence was available, dates assigned by other writers were accepted and they have been so credited. In 1905 Lennox himself published a promotional portfolio in which many of his buildings are illustrated. As a record of his work it is both helpful and problematic in that the illustrations bear only incomplete addresses and no dates. Lennox left no treatises on architectural theories, no papers outlining his career, no personal papers. He devoted his time to his career, and the writing he did was specific to business dealings, with the exception of a short article published for the purpose of raising funds for the Toronto General Hospital (see Appendix A). When he first started practising architecture in 1876, Toronto’s population was a little more than 70,000. By the time he had completed the building of his home, Lenwil, in 1915, Toronto, with a population approaching half a million, had become a significant metropolis. During those forty years building technologies, systems of transportation, and the means of generating power changed, but the changes had very little effect on Lennox’s architectural vision.
To the end of his life, Lennox was a resolute individualist. While he was not a pioneer of modern design, his traditionalist structures were nonetheless highly original. He designed with an artist’s eye and a sense of theatre; his talent as an architect rested in the power of his imagination and the strength of his artistic will – qualities that ultimately allowed him to put his unique stamp on all his work and set his buildings apart from others.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This project, though difficult, was above all gratifying. A research grant was provided by the Ontario Heritage Foundation and I had the help and encouragement of some of the most considerate people. My thanks go to ane Aitken, Paul Dilse, Mr. and Mrs. P. Eckardt, William Gilpin, Alec Keefer, Sharon Kish, John Yudelman; Karen Teeple, Steve Mackinnon, and other members of the City of Toronto Archives; Karen Bergsteinsson, Bill Cooper, Katrin Cooper, and Christine Niarchos-Bourolias of the Ontario Archives; Amy Lu, William Parker, Alan Walker, Tanya Henley, and other members of the staff of Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library; the Toronto Historical Board; Casa Loma; the Niagara Parks Commission; Ed Dover and Rosa Paparella of the Ontario Hydro Archives; Alex D. Camp of St. Paul’s Anglican Church Archives; Sister Victoria of Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate Christ the King; and John O’Brien, who did a superb job photographing some of Lennox’s extant work.
My very special thanks go to my husband Isaiah Alan Litvak. This book would never have been completed without his help, love, patience, and encouragement.
INTRODUCTION
The Toronto into which Lennox was born in the year 1854 was a city of wharfs, churches, schools, and small businesses. The population, according to the provincial census of 1851–52, was just over thirty thousand. More than a third of Toronto’s population at that time were Irish born. Both of Lennox’s parents were born in the County of Antrim, near Belfast, but they did not meet until they arrived in Toronto. Lennox’s father had come to Upper Canada in 1832; he settled in Toronto, started a general produce business, speculated in real estate, and for about twenty years owned and ran a hotel on Francis Street (Francis Street ran north from King, opposite St. Lawrence Hall).
As a young child, Lennox was not known for his scholarly ability. But he exhibited strong artistic talent and was determined to become an architect.1 However, his father did not approve and it was only after much pleading that he was permitted to attend architectural drawing class at the Mechanics’ Institute.2 It was there his talent was recognized. “Though he was one of the youngest among experienced and older students, he carried off first prize and diploma at the head of about sixty pupils.”3
He was seventeen years of age at the time and, indeed, much younger than any of his fellow students, most of whom were experienced mechanics. Once having proved his ability and his determination, he was allowed to study architecture. His father helped him secure a place in the office of Toronto architect William Irving (1830—83), where he remained for five years.4
Irving’s architectural style had considerable impact on the young Lennox. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Irving was the son of a contractor and stone carver;5 he had arrived in Toronto in the early 1850s and joined the shop of Joseph Sheard (1813—83). Sheard and Irving were responsible for the building of the Ontario Bank, 1862 (Illus. 1 and 2).6 Reminiscent of an Italian Renaissance palace, the heavily carved surfaces and sculptural elements contributed to its presence and symbolism.
Having completed his apprenticeship, Lennox entered into partnership with William Frederick McCaw in 1876 – an association that lasted until 1881. That year Lennox, or E.J. as he was known to his friends, set out on his own and had the good fortune to marry a well-organized and efficient woman – Emeline, the second daughter of John Wilson of Cobourg, Ontario.7
The Lennoxes had four children: Eola Gertrude, Edgar Edward, Mabel Emeline, and Edith May. For thirty years, while the children were growing up, the family lived on Sherbourne Street, a boulevard occupied by Torontonians of wealth and influence. It was not until Lennox was in his mid-fifties that he began to design a grand house for himself and Emeline. The property, two and a half acres just west of Casa Loma, was purchased in 1905, and construction was begun in 1913. He and Emeline called their house “Lenwil” for both of their families — “Len” for Lennox and “wil” for Wilson. The Lennoxes moved into Lenwil in 1915. It was to be one of the last buildings E.J. worked on.
In 1977 Edith May “Maisie” Eckardt, Lennox’s youngest daughter, spoke with Colin Vaughan for an article about Lenwil and her father;8 she was eighty-five at the time. She talked about how exciting it was to move from Sherbourne Street to Lenwil: “There was no other house in Canada like it.” When the Lennoxes moved to their grand house on the brow of Wells Hill, Maisie was the only one of the children still home, but by 1916 she was married and gone. Edith May remembered her father and mother’s delight in their home and how, as her father grew older, he would walk about the grounds of Lenwil with a parrot on his shoulder.9
The picture his daughter Edith May painted of him is rather romantic: a remote figure walking lonely on the brow of Wells Hill – the artist contemplating his life. Lennox was not the contemplative sort. He was action oriented and demanding, and he expected his children to do his bidding. Edgar Edward, interviewed in 1966, recalled that his father “was not what you might call a heart-to-heart man, but he was a good man who believed in the virtues of honesty and integrity, and practised them.”10 His grandchildren do not remember him very well. They have sharper memories of their grandmother. Peter Eckardt, Edith May’s son, has fond recollections of outings in his grandparents’ chauffeured car, a “1928 Pierce Arrow, 7 passenger Sedan,” and remembers his grandmother as a strong woman who made certain that his grandfather was left alone so that he could tend to matters of architecture