It must feel somewhat strange to live in the building where you went to high school. Do you look around your apartment and try to remember which classroom it could have been? Do you walk down the halls and visualize where your locker was? For some of the people who live at 262 Dundas Street East, this may be a
frequent occurrence.
The village's original school in Sealey Park which held both elementary and high school students was in such bad shape that, after Mary Hopkins opened in 1921 for elementary students, the high school students spend seven years being educated in various locations around the village, until a new high school was finally opened in January 1928.
Built at a cost of $70,000, the Art-Deco style building struggled to find a name. It was situated on Dundas Street, just west of Hamilton Street. As it was outside of the village borders in the Township of East Flamborough, that Council strongly felt that "East Flamborough" should be part of the name. Eventually, everyone settled on Waterdown District High School.
The original building had eight classrooms, a gym and an assembly hall. Additions were built in 1954, 1956 and 1967-68. These added a cafeteria and kitchen, more classrooms, a girls' gymnasium, a library and facilities for shop and occupational courses. But eventually further population growth meant that more room
was needed, and in September 1992 the new high school opened on Parkside Drive. This building became vacant.
The Wentworth County Board of Education considered several proposals for use, including as an elementary school, leasing to the over-crowded Flamborough Municipal offices, or leasing it to other government agencies. Eventual, in November 1995, the school board decided to sell it.
In 1996, The Emmanuel Pentecostal Assembly in Waterdown submitted plans for a seniors' housing complex, a community outreach/daycare centre and a new church sanctuary. They proposed demolishing the classroom portions of the building, transforming the gym and shop areas into the outreach and daycare facilities, constructing a 1,000-seat church building, and adding 100 housing units in a six-storey structure on the old sports field, to be called Jubilee Village. This did not happen.
In June 1997, Stonehaven Homes Inc. finalized an offer with the Wentworth Board of Education to convert the existing structure into a 60-unit, three storey apartment complex, a row of 16 townhouses behind the school and, further back, an additional 16 units of semi-detached homes. These would all be designed as a retirement community for seniors and "empty-nesters".
This is now the complex many people – some of them former students – call ‘home’.
