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Toronto is a hard-working city, but skyscrapers and cubicles aren’t for everybody
By Alex Bozikovic | Photography by Michael Graydon
1| An 1800-square-foot converted warehouse near Dundas and Dufferin
2| A one-bedroom apartment in the new Artscape Triangle Lofts near Queen and Dufferin
3| A massively renovated Victorian near College and Ossington
4| A five-storey landmark house in Corktown
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For almost a decade, Karen and Richard Pilosof lived the expat high life in London. Richard’s career as a trader was thriving, their three young kids—Jordan, Kit and Eli—were enjoying school, and the family loved their Arts and Crafts house in the tony Hampstead Heath area. When Jordan was recruited to board at an elite tennis academy in Florida, however, Karen and Richard balked at the prospect of transatlantic parenting and opted to return to their native Toronto. They listed their London house (it sold to the captain of Arsenal FC), packed their bags and, after summering in the south of France, landed in Forest Hill.
Once in Toronto, Richard started his own investment firm, and Karen, an accomplished artist, redesigned the new house. The place was built about 10 years ago by the previous owner, who had commissioned Toronto architect Dee Dee Taylor Eustace to design the structure and HGTV host Sarah Richardson to decorate the interior. “It felt like a boutique hotel,” says Karen. “It was absolutely beautiful, but the owners probably had no children. It was too serious. I had to make it more family-oriented and more playful.” She added a mixture of repurposed vintage pieces, hockey memorabilia (Eli has a shrine to Alex Ovechkin in his bedroom) and show-stopping art pieces—many of which came from the Pilosofs’ extensive personal collection. It took a few years, but Toronto is finally starting to feel like home again.
There’s nothing sacrilegious about this city’s appetite for loft conversions, even when the raw space is a deconsecrated church
By Alex Bozikovic | Photography by Michael Graydon
1| A 1906 building formerly home to the Centennial Japanese United Church
2| A 1941 building, once home to a Slovenian Catholic congregation
3| A 1921 addition to the Riverdale Presbyterian Church
4| A 1911 Methodist church, used by an Italian evangelical congregation since 2003
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Carolyn Chapman, who was an administrator at Upper Canada College for almost 25 years, and her husband, Patrick, bought their 25-acre farm near Creemore soon after they got married. Chapman had been longing for rural vistas like the ones she remembered from growing up on a sheep station in Australia. Their farmhouse, originally built in the 1880s, had a crumbling 1960s addition and became a decades-long work-in-progress. “Once, my husband and I were having tea with a friend, and we mentioned that we’d been meaning to knock down one of our living room walls,” Chapman says. “Our friend said, ‘There’s no time like the present.’ So we picked up some hammers, and that wall went out the window.”
When looking for a place to live, most people would avoid a boarded-up convenience store brimming with junk, or a makeshift church overrun with mice. Other people—like the owners of these resolutely urbane houses—would consider themselves bestowed with a real estate blessing. These unique living spaces are all former commercial storefronts, with massive showroom windows smack dab at street level. The perks? Lots of space, lots of light and a reasonably priced downtown address. The catch? Waving at passersby from the breakfast table.
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