My Neighbours the Maiers
July 1, 2025 | Goldhawk Photo Essays
Photo essay shot by Forster Chan, written by Lisa Guo
From my bedroom window at 216 Goldhawk Trail, I’ve been looking across the street at my neighbour 219‘s front lawn pretty much my whole life. We moved into this neighbourhood in 2003. When I came to see my own house for the first time, I screamed “Mr. Maier!!!” unabashedly at the recognition of my primary school principal at Alexmuir JPS, who was now going to be my neighbour. We both remember that moment.
Theirs is a front lawn that comes alive with the seasons. Pumpkins for the Fall, flowers for the Spring and Summer, and lights for the Winter. Today, it reads “Happy Canada Day.” I think about how happy their grass must be to be so well tended to.
Mr. Maier is still adding fertilizer to the flower patch, even though July will be his last month in the house. It was recently bought by a young couple after months on the toiling market. My new neighbours will move here in August, with big shoes to fill. Just last year, the older couple beside us at 218 Goldhawk Trail also moved away. With these longtime neighbours, the generation’s memory of our space disperses to other parts of the city. I’m writing to keep a piece of this memory for us at Goldhawk Park.
Doris and Lothar Maier moved into the Goldhawk Park neighbourhood 40 years ago. They still recalled seeing the house for the first time.
“We loved the yard because we came from a townhouse and we didn’t have much of a backyard… My dad actually said to us… Well, I don’t want to interfere or anything, but I think you’re crazy if you don’t buy this.”
219 stands as a sturdy brick home, framed in brown wooden details, with a spacious backyard. Strangely enough, their exact loveseat was in the home when they first saw it — a gentle prelude to the life ahead. It felt right instantly.
Doris and Lothar raised their kids Allison and Jonathan in this house. At that time, the neighbourhood was alive with kids playing baseball, bringing out all the adults for barbecues sponsored by businesses in the local plaza Alton Towers. The neighbourhood association was made up of a few determined and caring people who lived here.
Allison and Jonathan were among the groups of kids that would travel through the hood in a laughing pack from the swimming pool of 217 to the kitchen of 219, all day.
“So [the kids] were out in the morning, and they’d go home for lunch, and we’d have all the kids, or one of [the neighbours] would have all the kids for lunch, and then they go back out and often spend the afternoon [at another neighbour’s]. So our kids will tell you, that it was a great place, and also, I think, community involvement went around baseball.”
The neighbourhood shifted over time to become the one I eventually grew up in. My childhood still involved wandering in a pack through the park, but I was surprised to learn about the barbecues and baseball.
When Allison and Jonathan had kids of their own, the grandkids inhabited the house their own way. Doris’ favourite iconic blue walls in the kitchen and sitting room found a place in granddaughter Evangeline’s sense of home. She was very concerned at the thought of her grandparents moving - “Does that mean we won’t have a blue room anymore?” Grandson Darius loves lying down on the carpet in the living and dining rooms. They each claimed their own bedrooms upstairs.
The house has witnessed all the moments that make up a lifetime: holidays, weddings, graduations, birth, and death. The gathering through these rhythms of life made this house a home for the Maiers.
Each piece of furniture has its own tale. In the dining room, a set of wooden display case cabinets are proudly set. It was made by Sal who lived at 212 Goldhawk Trail in his workshop. Sal moved away before we even moved here, but these threads connect us because we have shared a wonderful neighbour.
Many other solid wood pieces came from St. Jacobs market, having traveled with them from previous homes. They kept the wear and tear that had something to say. Faded markings of “Jonathan” can still be found somewhere on the couch side table.
“It’s not just a structure, right? We’ve had birthday parties. We’ve had Christmases and Thanksgivings here. The table keeps getting bigger and bigger. We keep pulling it out more and more, which is as it should be.”
Doris and Lothar can be seen everyday, hand in hand, walking around the park. No days off. They love it. Doris’ sister photographed a perfectly ordinary portrait of the bend in the walkway at the entrance of Goldhawk Park for them, it hangs in front of the stairs. Lothar invited me over last Fall to look through a decade’s worth of school hallway photo collages from Alexmuir to see if I could find my grade 3 self amongst them. I did. It was surreal. At the time, they had beautiful pencil portraits of the grandkids, photos of the family, and seasonal decor adorning all the walls.
“Yeah, we remember the people, like the person who made this, remember where it was made and that we’ve carried it… it used to be a coffee table in the townhouse, and now it’s used for [something else]… and we’d like to take it along, because it has a story.”
They are recognized neighbourhood characters, partly for their fiercely routine daily walks, but it’s so much more than that. Lothar is a school principal through and through. His teacher’s voice rings across to street to me with funny remarks and greetings when we cross paths going in and out of our houses. They’re the neighbours that would lend you their ladder, help you put up your Christmas lights, and call 311 about the roadside raccoon carcass then proceed to bag it themselves for safety. Other neighbours walking by have been vocal with sadness at the sight of the swinging “for sale” sign that went up after Easter this year.
The neatly bound real estate pamphlet exclaimed the house’s specs: square footage, school district, neighbourhood walk score. But how does one really translate 40 years of care for a home onto pieces of paper? What stories would the walls tell of 3 generations of the Maier family?
In order to become more generally palatable to the “market,” the walls of the house were painted white, all personal touches set aside, and grandson Darius’ favourite carpet taken out. Maybe these transformations necessary for selling the house are the baby steps of this big life transition.
“It’s not bad, because you do learn a little bit of letting go… because this isn’t the way I want it anymore. I had it the way I wanted it, and it isn’t anymore.” Doris reflects, as she sits in her favourite room with the fireplace, now staged for sale. ”
In August, they will be moving to a condo in Guildwood that they’ve been eyeing for a while. Both of them will miss the house and the neighbours, but not the yard work, the stairs, or the snow shovelling.
Just like the coincidental loveseat that seeded their intuition about this home, their next home comes with a parcel of magic, too.
““We bought it and everything, then their realtor called our realtor and said, you are not going to believe this. The original owners… Their names, Doris and Lothar, wow.””
The previous owners shared their names — one of those odd overlaps that suggests the universe has a sense of rhythm, if not reason. Last week Mr. Maier came by to tell us that a large branch from almost fell on him in his backyard. I’d like to imagine it was the land’s clumsy dramatic way of waving goodbye.
I look out onto their home now, our last month as neighbours across the street, and I see the garage packed to the brim ready to go. As it happens, I’m also packing up to move, again. I can’t imagine 40 years transpiring anywhere and their story gives me a primal ache for roots.
In the tenderness of the seasoned souls moving away, the gratitude of the neighbourhood saying goodbye to them, and the hope of a young couple to come – I feel the bittersweetness of all life’s transitions. In these last days of my staring out the window of my childhood bedroom, it hits me all at once.