Laxton Buddhist Centre

Air quality is a no-no

Of the 3 (maybe 4) houses that were abandoned, one was of particular interest to me. This beautiful Edwardian-style house on 7 Laxton formerly belonged to the Karma Sonam Dargye Ling (KSDL), a Toronto-based Buddhist organization that was founded in 1976. The KSDL’s objective is to provide a place where people from any ethnicity or background can practice and study Tibetan Buddhism. This house was interesting, as it was formerly a residential home that was bought and renovated by the KSDL in 2012 into a Buddhist Cultural Centre. It stayed that way for less than a decade before the second and third floors went under renovation to house residential units. Limited available information online makes it difficult to know if the center remained open at this time, or if it was also converted into a residential dwelling.

On October 11th 2024, disaster struck. A fire of undisclosed origin started on the second floor of the house. Police and firefighters were publicly reported to be at the scene at 4:30 pm, and it wasn’t until 6:40 pm that the fire was confirmed to be out. The fire destroyed the majority of the second floor and the house was deemed unlivable.