Author’s note: the single Shipp-Built brick was not installed in Shipp homes in Applewood Acres. It first appeared when the firm moved north of Dundas where more than one builder was constructing homes. I once quipped to Harold Shipp that he didn’t put any in the Applewood Acres homes. Harold came to me one Christmas and presented me with two bricks. One was s installed in my home at 860 Hedge Drive. Some 18 years after we moved to 2059 Stewart, I had the opportunity to have the second brick placed.
In 1953 Gordon S. Shipp was elected President of the National House Builders Association of Canada. Mr. Shipp, who was born in Kent, Ontario, some 61 years earlier, began his career as a builder in East York Township and had practically built his way across Canada.
He served as President of the Toronto Metropolitan Home Builders’ Association, an organization with which he had been associated for more than 28 years. Mr. Shipp was active in the community where he lived as a member of the United Church and a member of the Toronto West Progressive Club. He became the first person outside of the United States to be named to the National Homebuilders’ Association Hall of Fame.
Gordon Stanley Shipp was in his late twenties before he began to think about leaving his 100-acre (40 ha) farm and entering the building trade.
By the time he was 30 his mind was fully made up. “My wife was having to work too hard on a farm and, in any case, building had always appealed to me,” Mr. Shipp was quoted in a magazine interview in 1953. “So my cousin and I went into partnership, bought some land, and started to build,” he said.
Little by little his knowledge grew. The partnership was dissolved and Mr. Shipp struck out on his own, putting up houses in East York, Forest Hill and New Toronto.
It was reported in the Canadian Home Builder magazine in October 1953 that Mr. Shipp learned every one of the intricate jobs that go into the building of a house, and that he could lay a floor, plaster a wall or tile a roof as well as any of the more than 150 men working for him.
He built his own seven-room home in about four months, which is, like most Shipp homes, well below the national average time of six to seven months. Weekends, Mr. Shipp would drive to his summer cottage in Bobcaygeon, to relax in a Shipp-Built cottage.
Gordon S. Shipp died February 9, 1981 at the age of 89. He was a big man with a soft voice, a reserved, almost shy manner, and a serious preoccupation with his job. He was not without a sense of humour. He was quoted by the media one time responding to the problem facing many builders of having to fill out more than 40 forms to complete the mortgaging process, saying “If it gets any worse, some builders will never find the time to build.”
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