About

The land where Professor’s Lake sits today was originally a farm situated on Lot 10, 5th Concession East of Hurontario Street. However, as far back as 1918 the current lake area started being used as a sand and gravel pit. The pit was operated on and off over the years by several owners. By the mid 1950's the site was running out of land from which to easily extract a reliable supply of sand and gravel.   

  

By this time, it had produced roughly 20 million tonnes of sand and gravel that was used largely for road building and subdivision construction in the Northwest GTA area. After sitting idle for a several years, the site was purchased in 1961 by Standard Aggregates (a subsidiary of Lafarge Canada). It was reactivated as an aggregate (sand, gravel, crushed stone) processing facility, and remained active until 1970. During that period, much of the raw material used to supply the stone crushing operation was mined in Mono Mills near the intersections of Airport Rd. and Hwy 9 and trucked to the Professor’s Lake location for processing and stock piling. The large acreage of the site was an ideal location for holding inventory for eventual trucking to locations around the GTA.  

  

In 1970 the operation was finally shut down and over the next several years the stone crushing plant and the giant conveyors were dismantled and relocated to other operations of then owner Standard Aggregates Ltd. Contrary to urban myths the pit area did not suddenly flood leaving equipment stranded on the site. In fact, Standard Aggregates went to considerable efforts to rehabilitate the site to the highest standards of the day with the intention that it would eventually be turned into a residential and recreational area much like we see today. The rehabilitation was completed with such care that several years later in 1989 the site received the “Bronze Plaque Award” by the Ontario Stone, Sand & Gravel Association. That plaque is mounted on a large boulder near the entrance to the current recreation center. 

  

After the rehabilitation was completed in the early to mid 1970s the pumps that kept the huge excavation dry were turned off and over several months the site was allowed to naturally fill to the normal water table level. There were several small streams at the south end of the property that fed into the lake area as well. Overflow water flows into the City’s storm water management system through a drainage weir at the northeast end of the lake. After the rehabilitation of the property Standard Aggregates sold the property to a local property development group.  

 

At the time of the sale, Southern Ontario was in the midst of a housing industry slump and the property went undeveloped. Over the next 5-7 years the property changed hands several times and eventually was purchased by the large real estate development company, Lehndorff Corporation, through it’s residential land development subsidiary Amex Developments. Amex, led by it’s President, Keith Stewart, soon began preparing the area for residential development. It was at this stage that the area acquired its current name, Professor’s Lake. Lehndorff’s President, Hans Abromeit had earlier been a Professor of Economics in Germany. Thus he was commonly referred to as “Professor Abromeit” by his staff and industry insiders. As a bit of an inside joke staff at Lehndorff and Amex often referred to the Brampton development site as the Professor’s lake, and that name eventually stuck.