Near Casa Loma, One Man’s Castle
WHO: Erik Calhoun, a 45-year-old architectural designer and interior-design instructor, and his Jack Russell, Emmett.
WHERE: Davenport and Christie.
Davenport Road can be a glamorous address—the eastern stretch is lined with high-end restaurants and designer boutiques. But Erik Calhoun opted for a storefront near Christie that was a bit more downmarket. “When I saw it, there was an evangelical Charismatic Catholic church operating in here,” he recalls, relaxing in what’s now his living room. “There was an altar set up with fruit and bread and candles, and mice running across my feet and around the entire place.” Yet Calhoun saw potential in the 1929 building; listed at $179,000, it was also the cheapest property for sale in central Toronto. “A retail space worked really well for me: it’s basically an open loft,” he explains, “but unlike a loft in a pricey condo complex, you get to own the whole building and decide what to do with it.” He bought the structure in 2003, gutted the main floor and basement, and designed a two-level apartment with surprising amounts of light and space. Calhoun removed the knee-high platform from the storefront display area, exposing a sun-filled opening into the basement bedroom below. The main floor is now the sort of wide-open space he dreamed of, with living, dining and kitchen areas. Calhoun is experienced at re-imagining drab spaces; he teaches a workshop at George Brown on how to redecorate your home without buying anything. His own decorating strategy was almost as budget-friendly: the kitchen is mostly IKEA, the dining room set is IKEA, and so are the plain Billy bookcases, which display folk art he collected during a seven-year stint working across southern Africa. There are few traces of the previous occupants, which included a candy shop, a lunch counter and a video store. But if you look closely at the old softwood subfloors, which Calhoun uncovered and left rough, you can see the bolt holes from a succession of display units and counters. His kitchen looks out on a leafy yard at the back. The layout is a perk of settling in a storefront, Calhoun says: “I have street frontage, a backyard and a garage—all the things you don’t get in a loft apartment.”
A friend of Calhoun’s coated the picture window with a plastic film that allows light in but obscures
a direct view from the street.
Calhoun is given one text-based art print each year by his next-door neighbour, who owns the gallery Roadside Attractions.
Calhoun has been collecting and repairing rotary-dial telephones since childhood. This is a working 1940s Northern Electric model.
The dining table and chairs are from IKEA.
Calhoun purchased the hand-woven palm basket in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana.
His Turkish kilim rug covers the large metal grilles that once emitted heat from coal furnaces in the basement.
The buses were each carved from a single piece of wood by children in Zimbabwe.
The earthenware bowls are from a craft workshop in Gabane, a village in Botswana.
The stone elephant was made by a sculptor in Swaziland.
The toasters on the top shelf are both vintage; the Toast-O-Lator (left) has a peephole for watching the bread on a vertical conveyor.
This set of four sheep placemats was a gift from Calhoun’s mom. “They’re funny, colourful and a good talking point,” he says. “This sheep is quite serious.”
The cabinetry is IKEA’s discontinued Hallarum model, finished with eucalyptus veneer.
To prevent people from falling into the basement from the dining room, the cutout in this half-wall has French wrought iron railings Calhoun found at the Door Store.
The mpingo wood carving is a Tree of Life, depicting generations of a family, from Tanzania’s Makonde people.
The ceremonial carved wood mask is from Mali.
A friend organized Calhoun’s books by colour. “Before, I had them shelved randomly, and it was visually noisy,” he says. “This is much better: it’s calming and gives the room a sense of order.”
Calhoun picked up these tin windmill sculptures in the small town of Cradock, South Africa.
This print is a contemporary work by a San (Bushman) artist named Qwaa, from the Kalahari region.
Good grief. Yet more TL rich-person’s house porn. Who exactly do you think lives like this, aside from a select few? Way to ‘reflect’ the city. The mag has been getting consistently out of touch with reality. I quit.
March 2, 2011 at 4:43 pm | by Kate C.Hear hear…I couldn’t agree more
March 2, 2011 at 8:39 pm | by Kevin wongIt may not reflect the average Toronto citizen, but I don’t think anyone would pay for a magazine to check out an Ikea-furnished bungalow in Etobicoke. Calm down.
March 3, 2011 at 12:44 am | by dmzdmz – I would pay for a magazine like that!
As an apartment dweller for many years (and think will do the same for many more years) I think it would be great if they profiled apartment units in one of their issues though.
I can take ideas from anywhere but seeing something familiar would make me a happier reader, that’s for sure.
March 3, 2011 at 6:15 am | by zkreverything in Toronto Life Magazine is expensive so that is why I ended my subscription
I would like an article on how to manage all your stuff in a small apartment
March 3, 2011 at 7:22 am | by asOh, how I hate it when a duplex, archecturally designed to look like one structure is ruined because the two owners can’t get together and decide on a colour that will maintain the intended look….this place just looks like hell to me which is why I would never buy a duplex unless it was in the contract that the two half had to remain visually as one….Why preserve this property then ruin it.
March 3, 2011 at 8:29 am | by TIM DEVLINgreat inside but get creative with the exterior and inspire your neighbours to do the same.
March 3, 2011 at 8:30 am | by TIM DEVLINwait, you WANT to see interiors that look like the ones you live in? good god, why? that’s like electing Rob Ford mayor because, well, he’s just like you…oh wait.
(aspire to bigger things, friends.)
March 3, 2011 at 10:35 pm | by whoaThe irony of some the comments above is that this particular project was completed on a shoe-string budget. Just because it looks good, it does not mean that it costs a lot – this is a common misconception. (The photography of the space costs a lot, which of course helps it look good.) The captions list all the elements received from friends, recycled, made by the owners, picked up from the street, left behind by the previous owners – all factors that make the space and the stuff within more interesting and of course affordable. The raw plywood wall should be the biggest clue!
March 3, 2011 at 11:32 pm | by Not rich designerCongrats to the owners but it is just more Californication of the city…
March 4, 2011 at 4:40 pm | by WalterPas long as the price is right …why not …Canadians have imagination …better than renting..this is recycling history..
March 5, 2011 at 5:50 pm | by Brian5427awesome article, very inspiring and innovative. keep up the great work.
March 7, 2011 at 4:00 pm | by aishaI used to live in a storefront. It was my sister’s former art gallery but then she had two babies and I moved in. She bought that building for an amazing price, worked her butt off to turn it from a rather disgusting pit into a stunning, sunny home. It took imagination, inspiration and lots of hard work. The whole family pitched in! That’s exactly what this article is about. Finding inspiration. Don’t just look at it as something too expensive you’ll never acquire it. Look at their use of colour, the different woods they’ve combined and find inspiration to change your space into something beautiful.
March 10, 2011 at 12:57 am | by SharlanneSomehow I don’t think “Kate C.” will deny herself the opportunity to repeat her complaints, which seem to boil down to demanding articles about uninteresting homes. Exactly how does a $175,000 home qualify as “rich-person’s house porn”?
Personally, I think these homes show imaginative solutions to problem sites.
March 15, 2011 at 8:45 am | by Ben LawsonI also own a downtown storefront conversion. It’s very inspiring to see what others have done with them!
April 5, 2011 at 4:27 pm | by Kristen