Corporate History

Mattamy Homes. A few words of explanation.

One product, lovingly crafted, humbly sold and proudly owned. That's how it starts for most companies. That's how it started for us, in 1978.

Peter Gilgan took a look around and saw an opportunity for Mattamy Homes to create something different in a world of sameness.

He studied home design concepts from all over North America and especially of a growing movement called New Urbanism. This new movement called for homes to be more individual in character and designed into friendlier communities with  integrated green space and consideration given to people over cars. Mattamy Homes initial foray into New Urbanism resulted in community design with lots configured by width not depth.

WideLot™ homes helped Mattamy evolve into Canada's largest builder of new homes.

Today, Mattamy is involved in every single aspect of community planning. We acquire the land, we design the homes, we plan the streets, we create the parklands. We also constantly look for ways to improve what we do. As a company, we have built over 25,000 homes in 76 communities throughout the GTA. We've done this one home at a time.

Projects like Cornell in Markham, Rouge Park in Scarborough, Upper Country Club in Cambridge and Canada's first all WideLot™ community, The Orchard in Burlington are living testimonials to the effectiveness of our approach to creating diversity of choice while finding affordable, innovative designs to increase density without increasing crowding.

But we are the first to admit that sometimes growth means 'smaller' not 'bigger'. We want to make sure that our company is capable of responding to changing market conditions and human needs. So we divided our company into divisions around the GTA so we could deal more nimbly with local market conditions.

For example, our new communities in Alliston and Bracebridge will make use of the natural surroundings so homes fit into the environment. Larger homes are available because space is available.

On the other hand, in communities like High Park in Mississauga and Upper Glen Abbey in Oakville, we were required to find ways to provide affordable homes in diminishing space.

In Mississauga we created Urban Walk-Ups, three storeys high with a home on each storey. They sold out in hours.

In Oakville we designed Village Homes to add density without crowding.

In Scarborough, Markham and Milton we are currently creating new townhome styles including live/work, back-to-back, live/rent and "Main street" 3-storey designs all of which help the community expand by growing from within.

In Milton, we have a work in progress. Hawthorne Village is our largest community and we are developing retail right in the community. Currently 4000 families live there.

In the past few years, we have acquired three companies in the United States that in our judgment, fit within our ideals of what a home builder should be. We are also exploring the possibilities of building high quality homes in a factory setting.

Our most recent project in Ontario will take us well outside the GTA orbit. We have purchased 2 pieces of land in Kanata, just outside of Ottawa and are currently planning land use and home designs for this new opportunity.

'Home' is a simple word with a thousand complexities. Our job is to learn and master all those complexities. The better we are at it, the more we will succeed. For now, we know one thing for sure. We must treat what we do with great importance because 'home' is where everyone longs to be.