Uxbridge, population 20,000, has always been a bit more charming than your average Toronto exurb; this is the kind of place where a gluten-free restaurant and an indie bookstore coexist with annual steam-thresher demonstrations and War of 1812 re-enactments. The township took on a certain celebrity cachet when Web sites began to buzz with reports of Hayden Christensen building a farmhouse in north Uxbridge. Paparazzi trailed the actor to neighbourhood stores and restaurants, then caught him on a cherry picker with his fiancée, Rachel Bilson (of OC fame), looking down on their sprawling construction site. (Their plans include fields of lavender and a barnyard of pigs.)

Then the April issue of the house-porn bible Architectural Digest hit newsstands with a glossy seven-page pictorial of a palatial home on Brookdale Road. The rustic 10,000-square-foot lodge belongs to Robert Lee, a Toronto-based businessman, and features six bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, a squash court, a theatre, a timber-ceilinged great room and a garage for 14-plus cars. Since the spread ran, the address has attracted drive-by shutterbugs. Several homes in the area are now listed in the multimillion-dollar range, including Graystones, a 1936 manor currently on the market for $1.199 mil­lion. And the upscale Wooden Sticks golf course—partly owned by the former NHLer Gary Roberts—doesn’t seem so far afield anymore. “It is getting glam, isn’t it?” says Uxbridge RE/MAX agent Dianne Olsson. “I’ve often said, ‘Jeez, you have to have a lot of money to live in Uxbridge these days.’ ”