Doors Open Toronto 2015

[rusty_armour]

I should have posted this over a week ago, but I'm hoping it was worth the wait. My mom, sister and I took advantage of Doors Open Toronto again this year and visited three fabulous locations in Scarborough. I'll provide a bit of background on each place, but this entry will mostly be made up of pictures.

The first location that we visited was Fool's Paradise, a beautiful piece of property that was owned by a Canadian landscape artist named Doris McCarthy. McCarthy discovered the piece of land overlooking the Scarborough Bluffs when she was on a sketching trip and purchased it in 1940. Over the decades, McCarthy built and had built many wonderful features, such as a cottage that expressed her unique personality, a pond, and a fountain. Her home also reflects her petite stature with shelves and cupboards at a low height that she could reach easily. McCarthy donated the property to the Ontario Heritage Trust in 1998 and lived in Fool's Paradise until her death in 2010. Fool's Paradise is now an artist-in-residence centre.






























































Fool's Paradise is at the foot of Meadowcliffe Drive, a street of magnificent homes. I had no idea that there was anything like this in Scarborough. As I said to my mom, it reminded me of Victoria, BC more than Toronto.























Our next stop was the Cedar Ridge Creative Centre, a site featuring a public art gallery (in a 1912 historic mansion), teaching studios and wonderful gardens. They also happened to have delicious cake and amazing fruit punch. Mom and I popped into a painting class and the pottery studio before the three of us took a quick look at the gardens.























After lunch, we visited the very impressive Jing Yin Temple, which was completed in 2013. Master Lian-xiong (a former master builder) led a group of Hong Kong and Toronto volunteers in the construction. The Jing Yin Temple is very active in the community and undertakes a lot of charity work. Its members teach classes, make donations to food banks, visit senior residents, and organize disaster relief.