November 2025
Known as the “Doctor’s House,” it was the last building built for what was once called the Ontario Hospital for the Insane. It’s now just a memory. The hospital, now known as Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences, opened in 1913 in the Town of Whitby as a new, progressive facility for the mental health care.
The Ontario Hospital was intended as a replacement for the outdated Provincial Lunatic Asylum, founded in 1846 at 999 Queen Street in Toronto, a facility that continues to operate today as the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health- Queen Street Site. What made the Ontario Hospital different was that the residents and staff were housed in cottage-style buildings, in accordance with the hospital’s progressive philosophy of providing a home-like atmosphere to those undergoing treatment.
The Doctor’s House was built in 1918, at the end of a five-year period when more than 30 buildings, 16 of which were the residential cottages, on 40 acres of treed farmland, sloping down to the shore of Lake Ontario. The benefit the hospital offered to patients fresh air, sunshine, space to walk and an opportunity to heal, elements that couldn’t be found in urban hospitals.
Each cottage was constructed in such a manner as to allow natural sunlight through the windows, accommodating around 60 patients each.
By February 1917, soldiers returning from the European battlefields received long-term rehabilitation treatment at the hospital, which had been leased by the Military Hospitals Commission. Many were badly wounded and needed intense, long-term treatment. Since general hospitals were not equipped to meet such needs, the made arrangements to lease patient cottages for the purpose of treating wounded soldiers. The hospital was returned to the Ontario government in 1919.
A nursing school was also established at the hospital from 1920 to 1972, when responsibility for training nursing training became the responsibility of the Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology system, established in 1965.
At its peak, the hospital was home to 1,650 patients. By the 1950s, advancements in medication, therapy, care and a better understanding of mental health issues enabled the implementation of a community care model. In 1968, the name of the hospital changed to the Whitby Psychiatric Hospital.
Between 1970 and 1977, the in-patient population dropped to around 500, as more patients were released under supervision to the community.
By 1993, construction of new hospital facilities began to replace the aging buildings. These new facilities were opened for patient care in 1996, originally under the name of the Whitby Mental Health Centre, later changed to Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences in 2009. Most of the old buildings were demolished ten years later, disused and deteriorated, leaving only the “Doctor’s House.”
Proposals were put forth by residential developers to incorporate the “Doctor’s House” into a new development on the vacant former hospital property, possibly as a community centre and private school. High costs to rehabilitate the cottage made this impractical and it was left to deteriorate to the point that demolition was inevitable.
In November 2025, the Doctor’s House was demolished, officially closing the early chapter of the Ontario Shores Centre.
Sources: Whitby Psychiatric Hospital – Wikipedia, Cottages Whitby Psychiatric Hospital, 1978: Whitby Images, Saving heritage in Whitby, Last building from original Ontario Shores hospital demolished over safety concerns | Durham Radio Newshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Shores_Centre_for_Mental_Health_Sciences, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health – Wikipedia, List of colleges in Ontario – Wikipedia.
