The name is a developer's joke that stuck. When Marc Cavotti bought the old Silverthorn farm in 1958, his associates called the parcel Marc's Land, that got shortened to Markland, and the trees he agreed to leave standing supplied the rest.
John Silverthorn arrived in 1807 and in 1811 registered 160 hectares north of Dundas Street. His family began reforesting forty hectares in 1878, which is why there were mature trees left to argue about eighty years later. Cavotti's group bought the 400-acre farm in 1958, building started in 1960, and most of the houses were finished by 1967. Markland Drive is a literal circle with the streets radiating off it, which is where the community slogan, "A Circle of Friends", came from.
The golf course is there because of Hurricane Hazel
The conservation authority ruled that roughly a quarter of the 400 acres could not be built on, because it lies in the Etobicoke Creek flood plain and Hurricane Hazel had rewritten the rules. Cavotti made that quarter a golf club rather than fight it. Markland Wood Golf Club opened in 1964, wrapping the south and west. It is private, roughly seven hundred members, with the creek in play on thirteen of its eighteen holes.
Buyers ask whether it will be redeveloped. There is no redevelopment application on these lands, and no Ontario Municipal Board or Ontario Land Tribunal decision has ever addressed them. The case most often mis-linked to the course, LPAT PL171321 decided 26 March 2020, is about 240 Markland Drive.
If you back onto the course, the reason it has stayed open is regulatory rather than sentimental. The standard here is the greater of the Hurricane Hazel storm or the hundred-year storm, and the flood plain and its valley corridor are a regulated area. That is harder than zoning, but it is not a guarantee, and nobody should tell you the land can never change hands. In July 2013 the creek came over and closed the course for two weeks.
Grey brick, split levels, and trees somebody promised to keep
The detached housing is overwhelmingly 1960 to 1967, with custom builds along Markland Drive into the early seventies and a small tract at the north end of Thicket Road in 1971 and 1972. Bungalows and split levels on generous wooded lots, much of it grey brick, on streets named for trees.
Cavotti built around trees he did not want cut and asked buyers to sign contracts protecting them, though whether that survives as a registered covenant I could not establish. No published figure for typical frontages exists, so pull dimensions from City property data.
One bus, and it ends at Kipling
I am not going to dress this up. Markland Wood is a car neighbourhood. There is no rapid transit inside it, one route penetrates the interior, and the nearest subway station is at the far end of it. That route is the 49 Bloor West, running between Kipling station and a loop at Markland Drive and Bloor Street West, every day, until one in the morning.
Kipling is the western terminus of Line 2, a GO station on the Milton line with peak-direction weekday service, and a bus terminal opened on 4 January 2021. Highway 427 sits east beyond Renforth. Residents have told the City about speeding and cut-through traffic, and the Markland Wood Streets Plan is under way.
The change is on the apartment sites, not the houses
The pressure is on the 1960s and 1970s towers along Bloor and Markland Drive, which sit on parking lots their owners are filling in. 240 Markland Drive was appealed to LPAT and approved on 26 March 2020: the ten-storey rental building stays, a nine-storey building with townhouses goes in on Bloor, and the rental units are protected for twenty years. 4340 Bloor Street West was proposed at sixteen storeys in December 2020, cut back after community feedback, and approved in 2023.
210 Markland Drive is the largest. Proposed in 2022 as four twelve-storey buildings, it was adopted by City Council on 5 February 2025 as three buildings of nine, ten and twelve storeys beside the retained slab, 484 new units, with parkland dedication and twenty-year rent protection on the existing units. None of that changes a bungalow street. All of it changes Bloor and Mill.
One plaza, ten acres of hardwood, and four schools
Retail is Markland Wood Plaza at 4335 Bloor Street West, with a TD branch, a Dollarama, the Markland Wood Pharmacy, a medical clinic and a convenience store. Millwood Park is the ten acres of old hardwood the Silverthorn family asked to have preserved, where the Bloordale Baseball League, founded 1963, still plays. One thing people assume and should not: you cannot walk the creek from here down to the lake. The golf course is in the way.
Catchments get revised, so confirm your address with the board rather than the listing.
- Millwood Junior School, 222 Mill Road, 1962, to grade five with French immersion.
- Bloordale Middle School, 10 Toledo Road, 1960, grades six to eight.
- Silverthorn Collegiate Institute, 291 Mill Road, September 1964.
- St. Clement Catholic School, 4319 Bloor Street West, to grade eight.
What I tell buyers to check
Etobicoke Creek and the flood plain mapping. The creek is the western boundary and the golf course is the flood plain. A conservation authority permit may be required for an addition, a pool, a deck or a rebuild in the regulated area. Search the address in the TRCA flood plain map viewer and regulated area search before you write an offer near the creek or the course.
Aluminum branch wiring, and the rest of the 1960s package. The Electrical Safety Authority says homes built between the mid-1960s and the late 1970s are likely to contain aluminum wiring, which catches the tail of the original build, the 1971 and 1972 houses on Thicket and the later custom homes. ESA's position is that it is safe when properly terminated with devices approved for it, but some insurers will not bind without an ESA inspection and certificate of acceptance, so confirm insurability before the financing condition comes off. Have the inspection cover panel capacity, drain lines, the sewer lateral, asbestos in older insulation, and any buried oil tank.
Aircraft noise is the documented noise source, not the highway. Markland Wood is about five kilometres south of Pearson. The east-west runways send traffic over industrial land, but the north-south runways route over residential communities including this one, and the homeowners' association told a House of Commons committee in November 2018 that pilots request them for time and fuel and are routinely given permission. Visit on different days, at different times.
Backing onto the course has its own list. Errant balls, netting, maintenance noise and early morning mowing are the standard adjacency issues, and those rear yards may sit inside the regulated area. Whether the club holds easements with abutting owners I could not establish, so check the title.
Bloor and Mill is going to be a construction site. Three apartment infill approvals are in play in the community, one under construction. Ask to see the approved drawings before you commit. If you are rebuilding rather than buying, confirm which zoning instrument governs the lot, because applications here have been made against the pre-amalgamation Etobicoke Zoning Code.
Comparables are thin and the stock is unusual. Roughly 1,200 detached homes, in a built form of 1960s bungalows and splits on wooded lots that does not repeat outside the boundaries. Ask me for street-level comparables rather than anything published at the neighbourhood level.