The Grange

Toronto, Canada

Exterior only

Visible from the street; the inside is private.

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The Grange is a Georgian manor house built in 1817 in downtown Toronto, Ontario, making it the city's oldest surviving brick house and twelfth-oldest building overall. Constructed for D'Arcy Boulton, a prominent member of Toronto's influential Boulton family and the Family Compact, the house stood originally on substantial grounds well west of York's center. After passing through the Boulton family—including D'Arcy's son William Henry Boulton, who served as Toronto's mayor—the property was inherited by William's widow, Hariette, who remarried scholar Goldwin Smith. Upon Smith's death in 1910, the couple bequeathed the building to the Art Museum of Toronto, which later became the Art Gallery of Ontario. The Grange served as the gallery's first home and also housed the early Ontario College of Art and Design. Today it remains part of the Art Gallery of Ontario, now forming only a small portion of the expanded institution. Designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1970, the manor sits adjacent to Grange Park and the remnants of St. George Church, which the Boultons founded.