[3] The project was funded by the estate of Mr. Hart A. Massey, an alumnus from Victoria's early days in Cobourg.

[2]Famous residents of Burwash include Vincent Massey, Lester B. Pearson, Don Harron, and Donald Sutherland.

[4] Burwash Hall was designed to resemble the residences in Oxford and Cambridge, with modifications to the stair-case system and the division of houses.

[4] Sproatt & Rolph avoided architecture of commercial appearance, envisioning a structure that was academic in feeling.

[5] Constructed of Bedford Indiana cut stone and Georgetown rubble masonry,[6] the residence houses and adjoined dining hall intended to prove that beauty and efficiency were not antithetical.

[5] The building is divided between the large dining hall in the northwest and the student residence proper.

Adjoined to Burwash Dining Hall and completed in 1913, the upper houses were originally known as the Men's Residences.

The emblem of North House is an oil lamp, originally used to represent Victoria's Faculty of Theology, established in 1871.

North has an extended hallway and larger common room than the other Upper Houses due to its position on the corner of the building.

The owl is the emblem of Middle House, sourced from the Victoria College coat of arms, and originally used to represent the Faculty of Arts.

Until 2007, when Victoria administration made it co-ed, Gate House was one of the last remaining all-male residence building in the University of Toronto.

[7] The Gate House emblem is the Phoenix, visible in the bottom-right corner of the Victoria College insignia.

Gate House, with the rest of Upper Burwash, opened in 1913 and has held students every year since then except 1995, when it was renovated.

For 20 years Gate House hosted an annual party called Novemberfest in the Burwash dining hall.

[9] The Victoria Dean of Students cancelled Novemberfest in 2003, when police discovered widespread underage drinking and over 800 people in the dining hall, in violation of the fire code.

Until 2007, Gate House held secretive first-year initiation ceremonies called Traditionals, which involved writing slogans on campus buildings in chalk, singing songs to the all-women's residence (who would then sing back to them), and leading first-years around the house blindfolded.

[12] In 2007 President Paul W. Gooch wrote that Gate House undertook an "escalating series of actions" that were "defiant" and "disparaging of women", in response to Gate members constructing a 2.5-metre snow penis and placing a cooked pig's head in an Annesley bathroom.

Notable residents of Gate House include Lester B. Pearson, former Prime Minister of Canada, and Simon Pulsifer, who Time magazine nicknamed "The Duke of Data" for his contributions to Wikipedia.

These antics included pranks, toga parties, streaking, caroling to other residences, hazing rituals, "beer bashes" and "incessant pounding" on the Gate House table in the dining hall.

[7][15] Paul Gooch wrote that these traditions gave Gate House an "ethos" that contradicted his vision of residence life.

[13] The Toronto Star described Gooch's decision to put an end to its traditions, activities and distinguishing characteristics as "neutering Animal House.

The Victoria University Students' Administrative Council initially called for a renaming in February 2019,[16] which was followed by the Victoria University Research Panel on the Legacy of Egerton Ryerson in 2020, and ultimately the Presidential Report on the Legacy of Egerton Ryerson in 2021 which resulted in the change.

Each of these floors has a shared kitchen, and two bedrooms at the end of each hall with a connected bathroom, much like the other Lower Houses.

They also have two double-rooms in the middle of the hall, which have a connected bathroom and kitchen, meaning BG has the highest kitchen-to-student ratio in Burwash.