Avoca Villa

The residence of John Thomas Moore, stood at the corner of modern Inglewood and Rose Park Drives. Moore, managing director of the Toronto Belt Line Railway, envisioned a park-like residential district around the St. Clair East area. He filed his first plan for Glenrose Avenue west of Clifton Road in 1889. The depression of 1893 and resulting real estate slump caused the Belt Line’s failure in 1894. Moore’s plan for a garden subdivision failed too, but the neighbourhood that grew up in the area following the First World War was eventually named for him. Moore was famous for his love of roses; he founded the Rose Society of Toronto and imported shrubs for his garden from Great Britain.