rusty_armour | Doors Open Toronto 2025

It’s taken me a month to post this, but on Sunday, May 25th, I checked out this year’s Doors Open Toronto with my brother. We were able to cover four locations in total: the Canadian Film Centre, The Toronto Camera Club, St. Peter's Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church of Toronto, and Manor Road United Church.

We headed to the Canadian Film Centre first as it was at the top of our list and a little farther away from the other locations. However, saying that, it was pretty convenient travel-wise. We needed to take just the one bus from my place, and the bus stop is almost right outside my building. It took about 10-15 minutes to reach the Canadian Film Centre, which is located on the grounds of the beautiful Windfields Estate.

Windfields Estate is a 1930s Georgian Revival equestrian estate that was the residence of E.P. Taylor, a breeder of champion racehorses. The Taylor family lived at Windfields Estate until 1987 when the property was transferred to the City of Toronto with the understanding that it would be leased to the Canadian Film Centre.

B reading a historical plaque about Windfields Estate

B admiring the garden

CFC Northern Dancer Pavilion (named after the champion racehorse Northern Dancer)

The Canadian Film Centre now operates out of the Taylor family’s former residence. Unfortunately, my pictures of the small movie theatre didn’t turn out well, but here are some other photos that I took:

Poster for The Fly autographed by David Cronenberg.

Northern Dancer

Not CanCon but as it's a photo of Christopher Reeve, I don't care

Robertson Davies

Poster of Hurricane autographed by Norman Jewison, who was the founder of the CFC.

I didn't realize this at the time, but after skimming through
this blog, I learned that the building on the right
is the stables. I wish I'd taken a better photo of it now.

Sign beside a small water feature that hadn't been set up for the spring/summer yet.
For some reason (known only to my subconscious), it amused me.

So, if I haven't lost you at this point, you might have noticed that I really like trees.
I'd apologize for all the tree photos, but I'm not sorry. I feel no remorse at all.

Bwahaha!

Okay, I lied about feeling no remorse. Here's something that
isn't a tree: a glimpse of how the CFC gets around the property.

Cottages designed by Earl C. Morgan and added to the property in 1946

B and I decided to explore Windfields Park. Naturally,
this is the first thing I decided to take a picture of.

This is B being B...

After visiting the CFC, we caught the Bayview 11 again and headed for our next location. I had originally thought of getting off at Eglinton and transferring, but B pointed out that we could stay on the same bus and get off at Davisville and Mount Pleasant – Mount Pleasant being the street with one of the Doors Open locations (the other two being close by) and the restaurant where I wanted to have lunch. Unfortunately, it had started to rain while we were on the bus, but it wasn't long before we reached The Toronto Camera Club, so B's suggestion worked out well.

The Toronto Camera Club was founded in 1888, and it's the oldest camera club in Canada. It moved to its current location on Mount Pleasant Road in 1965.

Shot of the outside of The Toronto Camera Club.
Uh...this probably doesn't need a caption, does it?

A lantern slide projector (magic lantern) from the early 1900s

An E. & H.T. Anthony studio camera circa 1898

After our visit to The Toronto Camera Club we had lunch at the Granite Brewery

The next stop on our Doors Open tour was St. Peter's Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church of Toronto, which was designed by Estonian Canadian architect Michael (Mihkel) Bach in 1955. It is an example of a mid-century modernist church. I had gone past this church countless times, but I had never seen the inside of it before.

Some of the "Fruits of the Spirit" stained glass windows designed and created by Canadian artist Ernestine Tahedl.

The last location that we visited was Manor Road United Church, which was built in 1925 and is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.