As the Toronto Maple Leafs take to the ice for their 110th season this week, a landmark of one of the most controversial — and never dull — owners in their storied history has just been razed in Etobicoke.
Heavy machinery, which came on the heels of workers in haz-mat suits, has demolished the longtime home of former Toronto Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard, who died in 1990. The house at Montgomery Road and Bloor Street in The Kingsway played a key role in sending Ballard to prison for fraud and theft more than 50 years ago, not long after the Leafs last won the Stanley Cup.
“Boy, the stories those walls could tell,” said one neighbour, watching as a bright yellow excavator machine squared off against the sprawling, two-storey Tudor-style home.
Ballard had lived there since the 1940s, and reporters looking for a quote sometimes showed up in throngs on the front lawn.
Woodycrest — as Ballard named it — and surrounding lands are slated to become a Tridel residential and retail development.
Superstitious Toronto hockey fans may well wonder if the destruction of the home signals the end of what actor and documentarian Jason Priestley recently called “the Ballard Curse.” Priestley directed ”Offside: The Harold Ballard Story.”
Ballard’s house, like the old man himself, did not give up easily. Even at the time of writing, there is a small nub of foundation sticking up like a sore thumb.
“We are doing our best to recycle all materials on the site so not everything goes into landfill,” said Michael Mestyan, Tridel’s vice-president of development and planning. Due to “terrible market conditions,” construction on the condo project has been delayed.
Why knock the houses down now? “Squatters were coming and going,” Mestyan said, and Tridel was struggling to secure the site. Woodycrest and the two houses beside it had been empty for some time.
Because of its proximity to the Bloor subway line, extra care had to be taken not to disturb the ground during demolition.
The saga of Harold Ballard
As any sports fan from Toronto to Montreal (especially Montreal) and beyond knows, the Leafs last won the Stanley Cup in 1967. At the time, Ballard was a part owner of Maple Leaf Gardens on Carlton Street, executive vice-president of the Gardens and “alternate governor” of the hockey team. It was a heady time for Ballard, who aggressively booked big acts into the Gardens, including the Beatles, and watched the money roll in.
The Gardens was a public company, with Ballard and others having significant ownership chunks. A lot of money flowed through its coffers. That meant it was possible to hide hefty personal expenses.
The RCMP and crusading Crown attorney Clay Powell suspected that Ballard, by then the Leafs president, and fellow executive, Stafford Smythe, had been using Gardens’ money for personal use. In Ballard’s case, he was accused of fraudulently diverting $205,000 of Gardens money into home renovations and lawn sprinklers at Woodycrest, and plumbing at his Georgian Bay cottage near Midland. Other allegations included using $60 of Gardens money for three limousines that picked people up at Woodycrest and drove them to a church on the day of Ballard’s daughter’s wedding.
Though Ballard had an apartment in a corner of the Gardens, Woodycrest was where he and his wife (she died in 1969) raised their family. Whenever Ballard had something to say, the media would camp outside.
In 1969, Ballard and Smythe were charged with fraud and theft from the Gardens. A star witness, the Gardens assistant building superintendent, was given immunity from prosecution. He said fake invoices for Gardens work were created — in reality, they were for work done on the men’s personal properties. Gardens accounting staff then paid the contractors. The superintendent said he did this for Ballard as “a courtesy.”
Smythe died of a bleeding ulcer before his trial began. Ballard was tried and convicted, and sentenced to three years in prison for fraud and theft. In passing sentence, the judge said Ballard, then 69, “was in a position of trust and you violated that trust.”
He ultimately served a year. Ballard began his sentence in Millhaven minimum-security penitentiary near Kingston, which he described as being like a “motel” but was transferred to a Toronto halfway house, where he was allowed to attend Maple Leaf games, sitting in his private box.
Soon after release, Ballard, who had kept his shares and bought Smythe’s, took control of the Gardens and the Leafs, becoming the majority shareholder of both. The years that followed were anything but dull — one Ballard controversy followed another as he was accused by the media and fans of casting out star players and operating the team on a shoestring budget while he lived high on the hog.
Woodycrest was sold to the neighbouring business, Humberview Auto Centre, in 1990, the year Ballard died at age 86.
Tridel’s development area includes Ballard’s home, two other former housing sites, and the auto centre lands.
Tridel vice-president Michael Mestyan said contamination from the auto centre is being cleaned, and he said his company and the provincial environment ministry are in close consultation on the project.
The plans call for 410,000 square feet of development, which Tridel says will result in 350 to 400 housing units.
Two weeks ago, the last sentimental artifact was removed from Ballard’s home of 50 years. His surviving family members had asked for a carved “Woodycrest” sign above the front door. Tridel workers pried it off the walls, and the family picked it up.
