Unionville is a suburban village in Markham, Ontario, Canada. It is located 33 km northeast of downtown Toronto and 4 km east of southern Richmond Hill. Unionville is located between Rodick Road as the western limit, McCowan Road as the eastern limit, Major MacKenzie Drive as the northern limit, Highway 407 as the southern limit. Main Street, which was Kennedy Road in the mid to late 20th century, runs through Unionville while the new Kennedy runs 300 m to the east. Buttonville is located west of central Unionville in Markham.
The population of Unionville is presently about 30,000. Unionville is composed of many neighbourhoods including Olde Unionville, South Unionville, Angus Glen, and Berczy Village. Unionville is said to be one of the most affluent areas in the Greater Toronto Area with an average household income of $127,900. Rouge River runs north of the central part of Unionville and to the southeast. The highway (Highway 404) is to the west, the nearest interchange with the 407 ETR is 2 km south on Kennedy Rd. The population lives in almost all parts of Unionville except for the south central industrialized area. The railway line which links the area to Toronto via GO Train Service once ran as far as Lindsay, a town near Peterborough.
Geography
Once surrounded by farmlands, the village is now surrounded by suburban housing tracts. During the revival period in the 1970s a ban was placed on development for 25 years, but that time has now passed.
There is concern about how the village is now turning into a city, with all the new homes being build on farm lands, and heritage buildings being knocked down for new homes. Today Unionville has less than 10% of farm lands as there was in the mid 1990's.
In the 1960s, major housing development came to Unionville and is still ongoing. Having old buildings available at low cost, a number of antique businesses sprang up and for a while in the 1970s Unionville ranked high on the list of places to go to get antiques. After the commitment to a bypass was realised, in the 1970s, entrepreneurs appeared. The Old Country Inn opened for business and Old Firehall Sports brought a new clientele to the village. Over the next decades, the antique places disappeared being replaced by high-end antique and replica outlets, restaurants, pubs, and clothing establishments. Tourism was born. Starbucks appeared in the late 1990s. Many of the buildings have been spruced up, extended and upgraded to meet this new reality. The old original road, to the immediate east of Main Street, once considered to be swamp land, has been converted to a large parking lot.
Walking paths through the local conservation lands connect directly to the village roads. One of the most used being the path around Toogood Pond, the mill pond from the 1840s that powered the grist mill. In the early 20th century the pond was called Willow Pond or Willow Lake and was the home to several small summer cottages on north Main Street. Some had been cottages, for grist mill workers, in their earliest incarnation. Those cottages evolved into homes by the middle of the century, but are almost all gone now being replaced by large spacious expensive homes.
The Varley Art Gallery now stands at the north end of the commercial Main Street and is rapidly becoming a gallery of wide renown. It was started with the contributions of Mrs. McKay, who had supported Group of Seven artist Fred Varley for the later part of his life. Living in her home on Main Street Unionville, he did several paintings that are now part of the Art Gallery collection and the home is now part of the Art Gallery's holdings, being used for small art shows on a regular basis.
In the mid-1990s until the summer of 1999, Highway 407 was under construction. It is Ontario's first toll road and was first opened the summer of 1998 at McCowan Road. It was later extended to Brock Road.
The Unionville Arms, a well known pub, burnt down on November 30, 2007. It had been in business for 19 years prior. The building itself was over a century old. The legendary building caught fire in the morning and the fire was put out 3 hours later. No one was hurt. The Arms reopened in very much its original appearance, towards the end of December 2008.
The Unionville library, completed in 1984, serves as a major cultural facility in the historic village center. The 14,000 sf library plan is based on a traditional village square surrounded by eight houses of books expressed on the exterior as postmodern Victorian dormers. The library, which contains approximately 100,000 books and audiovisual materials, was designed by architect Barton Myers.
Martin MacFarlane - Sutton Group Heritage Realty Inc., Brokerage, independently owned & operated 161 Main St. N Markham, ON L3P 1Y2 (905) 471-2000 (416) 995-5542
with an average household income of $127,900. Rouge River runs north of the central part of Unionville and to the southeast. The highway (Highway 404) is to the west, the nearest interchange with the 407 ETR is 2 km south on Kennedy Rd. The population lives in almost all parts of Unionville except for the south central industrialized area. The railway line which links the area to Toronto via GO Train Service once ran as far as Lindsay, a town near Peterborough.
rough the local conservation lands connect directly to the village roads. One of the most used being the path around Toogood Pond, the mill pond from the 1840s that powered the grist mill. In the early 20th century the pond was called Willow Pond or Willow Lake and was the home to several small summer cottages on north Main Street. Some had been cottages, for grist mill workers, in their earliest incarnation. Those cottages evolved into homes by the middle of the century, but are almost all gone now being replaced by large spacious expensive homes.
