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Official residences in Toronto, Canada

Government House was the official residence of the lieutenant governor of Upper Canada and Ontario, Canada. Four buildings were used for this purpose, none of which exist today, making Ontario one of four provinces not to have an official vice regal residence.

The colony's first Lieutenant Governor, John Graves Simcoe, occupied a couple of residences during his tenure. Upon his arrival in Upper Canada in 1792, he used one of the buildings at Navy Hall in Niagara on the Lake as a residence, sharing the space with Upper Canada’s legislature. When Simcoe moved the colonial capital to York (present day Toronto) in 1793, he built a summer residence, Castle Frank, north of the settlement in 1794. Simcoe's successor and the colony's second Lieutenant Governor, Peter Hunter, initially continued to reside in his own home, Russell Abbey, located at the south west corner of Princess and Front streets. The structure was destroyed when a nearby powder magazine exploded in 1813 during the War of 1812.

After the destruction of the Fort York house, York did not have another Government House until after the War of 1812. In 1815, the government purchased Elmsley House, a more commodious Georgian residence, for its Lieutenant Governor. The new Government House was located in a wooded area to the west of the settled portion of the (then) Town of York, roughly midway on the block now occupied by Roy Thomson Hall and Metro Hall in downtown Toronto. Built in 1798, the residence had been the home of the Chief Justice and Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, John Elmsley, and it served as the colony's Government House from 1815 to 1841 (and intermittently from 1841 to 1858, during some of the times when Toronto served as the capital of the Province of Canada). From 1847 to 1849 it was home to the Toronto Normal School. For many years after its purchase by the government, the residence was still known by the name of its former owner, with the correspondence of the Lieutenant Governor typically dated from "Elmsley House". In 1846, the grounds were used for the first annual Provincial Agricultural Fair. Beginning in 1849, Lord Elgin, the Governor General of the then united Province of Canada, resided for two years at the similarly named Elmsley Villa, located near what is today the intersection of Bay and Grosvenor Streets (northwest corner), rather than at Elmsley House.

Four years after the fire at Elmsley House, the firm of Gundry and Langley of Toronto was commissioned to design a new Government House on the same site. It has been owned since 1923 by the University of Toronto and now functions as the international students' centre.

The government sought to construct a new government house on Bloor Street East and 12 architects submitted proposals in 1909. However, as that area was becoming too commercial, the province moved the site to a parcel of secluded and undeveloped land in Toronto's Rosedale neighbourhood. The proceeds from the sale of the Bloor Street site were used to acquire the land in Rosedale. Chorley Park, the fourth government house, was constructed between 1911 and 1915. It was named for Chorley, Lancashire, the birthplace of Toronto alderman and first chair of the Toronto Public Library, John Hallam. The house was designed by Francis R. Heakes and built of Credit Valley stone in a French Renaissance style, reminiscent of French châteaux in the Loire Valley. It was one of the most expensive residences ever constructed in Canada at the time and outshone even Rideau Hall in size and grandeur. Sir John Strathearn Hendrie and his wife were the first viceregal couple to live at Chorley Park. The Prince Edward (later King Edward VIII) stayed here for three days in late August 1919, on his cross Canada tour. During the Great Depression, Mitchell Hepburn made it a key component of his party's election platform to close Chorley Park, promising that an opulent palace would not be maintained by the taxpayers of Ontario; Chorley Park used 965 tons of coal to operate, whereas the average Toronto home used only six to seven. After Hepburn was appointed premier, following the Liberal Party's victory in the 1937 provincial election, he ensured that Albert Edward Matthews would be the last lieutenant governor of Ontario to live in an official residence; in 1937, after only 22 years and seven viceroys, Chorley Park was closed. The contents of the mansion were auctioned off the following year, bringing in a profit of $18,000