Number 4 Thirty Second Street in Long Branch, Etobicoke, was built in the Victory House style in 1940. The faux-stone concrete building blocks comprising its foundation are a staple of the typology. While homes like this one set the stage for the GTA's famous suburban developments, its modesty and utility set it firmly in another city planning era.

Before World War Two, many Torontonians lived in large Victorian houses as owners or staff. In the Edwardian period, apartment buildings slowly began to provide an alternative, but only near commercial streets in select areas of the city. It wasn't until the early 1940s that the first seed of mass-produced housing subdivisions was sown in the form of Victory Housing.

The abrupt acceleration of industrial production spurred by the war drew potential workers to city centres across Canada, and they needed a place to live all at once. In response, the government set up organizations like the Wartime Housing Crown Corporation, which built temporary and permanent homes throughout Canada with unprecedented speed by developing new ways of prefabricating standardized buildings materials modelled after military mass production.

Dubbed "Victory Houses", these one and a half-storey residences were simple and compact with square or rectangular floor plans on small lots. When veterans returned home in 1945, they received affordable mortgages to purchase their own Victory Houses.