The Kingsway, Toronto

An advertisement for residential development by Robert Home Smith & Company, 1930. Smith designed The Kingsway in adherence to the principles of the Garden city movement.

The neighbourhood was first developed by Etobicoke lawyer Robert Home Smith who purchased the old King's Mill (which was renamed the Old Mill, reopening as a high-end Inn) and began developing land in the early 1900s. The Kingsway emerged from Home Smith's vision of the ideal community and was mostly inspired by the Garden City principles, which were originally conceived in parts of England and the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Indeed, Smith was a big fan of everything English, and this inclination instructed his ideas for the neighbourhood. By the 1920s, those ideas culminated into the development, which he named Kingsway Park.

"Tastefully appointed" traditional homes were sited on well-treed and winding streets, to create an air of a wooded retreat. Home Smith also decreed that no owner could build a house without the approval of his staff, and he developed strict regulations against the cutting of trees. Most of the homes were designed in the Arts and crafts style, which had become popular during that time. Smith insisted on the use of locally sourced materials for the houses in Kingsway Park, such as sandstone quarried from around the Humber River and Credit River areas.[4]

Kingsway Park was aimed at affluent home buyers. Street names such as Queen Anne Road and Kingsgarden Road emphasized the appearance of English respectability and affluence that Smith was selling. Smith also created the Old Mill Restaurant in the community, whose Tudor Revival facade and well-appointed interior inspired much of the English design in the Kingsway.

Despite its well-intentioned approach to traditionalism, the Kingsway was a neighbourhood built for the automobile, and all houses were built with discreetly placed garages, as per Smith's wishes.

The Kingsway Theatre was reopened on 1 January 2009.

In the 1950s a series of accidents led to the creation of a highway style interchange at Royal York and Dundas, cutting the neighbourhood from the much older community of Islington to the west and the street 'The Kingsway' from its extension to the north. Consequently, the neighbourhood along the Kingsway north of Dundas developed in a radically different way than that to the south had done. The stretch of Bloor east of Prince Edward Drive near the entrance to the street 'the Kingsway' and the Old Mill saw the construction of many apartment buildings in this period.

The community in the Kingsway has been very successful in preserving the style of housing and atmosphere of the neighbourhood as intended by Robert Home Smith; the area contains many of Etobicoke's most prestigious addresses.

The Kingsway Theatre is an independent privately owned and operated business. It is not a community theatre and not dependent on charity. The Kingsway Theatre was reopened on 1 January 2009 by Rui Pereira and has been fully renovated.

Bloor Street is the southern boundary of the neighbourhood and also a major east–west arterial roadway and commercial district. Prince Edward runs north–south from Berry Road to Dundas Street West. It is a two-lane arterial roadway. The Kingsway road is a two-lane road beginning in the south-east corner of the neighbourhood extending northerly in a north-west direction past Dundas Street. Dundas Street West is the northern boundary of the neighbourhood and also a major east–west arterial roadway. There is some commercial and institutional uses along the roadway within the neighbourhood.