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ADDRESS: 16 May Tree Road
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Bridle Path–Sunnybrook–York Mills
AGENT: Kara Reed, Chestnut Park Real Estate Ltd., Brokerage
PRICE: $4,250,000
THE PLACE: This contemporary reinforced concrete home is nestled on an acre of forested land in the heart of Hogg’s Hollow.
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Purple Reign
Not quite a hat and not quite a hair clip, the fascinator is spring’s most regal fashion statement, thanks in large part to England’s newest princess-to-be, who is often photographed with one perched atop her head. At Lilliput Hats on College Street, requests for fascinators have doubled since the royal engagement was announced in November. And unlike china or mouse pads emblazoned with the royal couple’s heads, this is the kind of matrimonial hysteria we can get behind—if only for the opportunity to play dress-up with coquettish netting and decorative feathers. $70. Lilliput Hats, 462 College St., 416-536-5933.
ADDRESS: 31 Dunbar Road
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Rosedale-Moore Park
AGENT: Sarah Giacomelli, Chestnut Park Realty, Brokerage
PRICE: $3,750,000
THE PLACE: From the outside, this four-bedroom blends seamlessly with its surroundings: very Toronto, very Rosedale, very Victorian. The red bricks, however, belie the funky downtown vibe of the interior. Awash in colours like bright orange, sea blue and lime green, this house rethinks all the luxe appointments of Rosedale castles. Witness the five-piece en suite washroom, the comic-book decor, the gourmet kitchen and a wet bar covered in faux alligator skin.
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ADDRESS: 238 Davenport, Suite 303
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Casa Loma
AGENT: Dorann Gottlieb and Erica Gottlieb, Prudential Sadie Moranis Realty
PRICE: $4,195,000
THE PLACE: This two-storey condo is hidden in plain sight at Av and Dav, directly above the sleek headquarters of interior design powerhouse Powell and Bonnell. The coveted space (one of only seven units in the building) offers a bunch of features more common to houses: four bedrooms, three baths, nearly 4,000 square feet of interior space, a six-burner gas stove, a fireplace, a patio and a 200+ bottle wine fridge. This property is likely to convert any die-hard house dweller to the condo way of life.
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(Images: Michael Graydon )
OK, what’s wrong with this picture: white ceilings, white walls, white mouldings, white lacquered floors and two kids under five. Robyn Scott, a 37-year-old former institutional equities trader, freely admits to being a textbook type-A personality, which may explain why she chose such a crazy-making colour scheme. When she and her husband, Steven, the owner and CEO of Access Storage, decided to gut their newly purchased Forest Hill home, her friends tried to dissuade her from the all-white crusade, but Robyn was determined. She wanted a striking backdrop for her eclectic antique furniture.
Robyn approached 10 different contractors before she found an industrial flooring company willing to take on the lacquering job. Most of them balked at the idea of covering the beautiful hardwood. Then she found Michael Pelaic of Paint-Co in Mississauga, who approached the commission as an art project. The process was gruelling: sanding, epoxy primer, more sanding, more primer, then four coats of semi-gloss epoxy coating and two coats of high-gloss polyurethane topcoat—on all three storeys. The job took three weeks to complete. Read the rest of this entry »
(Image: Trevor King)
The King West seafood mainstay opened this financial district offshoot on quiet Temperance Street last spring. The owners are as environmentally conscious with their food as they are with their decor, using mostly reclaimed pieces for a stylish maritime vibe. Between five and 10 kinds of oysters are available each day, drawn from both coasts and sometimes from as far away as Japan. This day’s selection includes clean-tasting Rappahannock River oysters from Virginia, briny Merigomish from Nova Scotia, and the salty-sweet Kusshi from B.C., helpfully arranged from the most subtle to most potent ($3 to $5 each). Mix and match with the house-brand condiments, including the appropriately named Danger Bay hot sauce. A bowl of Rodney’s crispy, salty frites rounds out the lunch, like an ultra-refreshing version of moules frites. A house-made ginger beer ($2.50) is the perfect seafood complement.
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Mercer and Prince brings chic home accessories to Yonge and Eglinton
The place: Named after the hip Soho intersection, this Yonge and Eglinton shop offers home accessories similar to what you might find at Restoration Hardware or Teatro Verde for significantly lower prices. Having opened just in time for the Christmas rush last year, the store is offering discounts of up to 50 per cent on many items as it restocks for 2011.
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(Image: John Burgoyne)
Mirrors as tall as people are leaning chicly on every kind of wall (traditional, contemporary, lofty, you name it), bouncing light where windows are scarce. The oversized Beverly is a beauty, measures 30 by 70 inches, and hails from the hugest of all big box stores. It’s just the thing for an entranceway or bedroom and, at $135, fabulously priced; some home decor shops charge as much for delivery alone.
The Home Depot, 101 Wicksteed Ave., 416-467-2300, plus several other GTA locations.
Maureen Peng and her partner, Tim Johnstone, both 30, jumped into home ownership in 2008 when they bought a down-at-the-heels, six-bedroom rooming house in Corktown, vowing to fix it up—way up. They were suited to the task. Johnstone is a visual thinker (he’s a 3-D animation instructor at Humber College) and a weekend tool master. Peng is a project manager for an interior-design firm and a master at co-ordinating make-overs. Consummate party people, their priority was this front room—a venue for entertaining—distinguished with oversized crown mouldings and a ceiling medallion. Peng calls this the “clear-liquids-only” room. Read the rest of this entry »
Laser-etched 4’x6’ faux wood rug, $2,600. Hollace Cluny, 1070 Yonge St., 416-968-7894 (Images: Natasha V)
Giggle-inducing trompe l’oeil knick-knacks have infiltrated curio shops all over the city lately (see the Drake Hotel General Store, Bergo, Up to You, Rolo). Hence the nostalgia-inducing cassette tape that turns out to be an iPhone case, the tea towel designed to mimic loose-leaf paper, and that ubiquitous white ceramic mug that looks like a Styrofoam takeout coffee cup. This season, the phenomenon has spread beyond novelty gifts and inspired both high fashion and home decor. A playful, laser-etched rug by Toronto design studio Moss and Lam is expensive cowhide made to look like old-fashioned wood-grain floorboards—the ultimate union of familiar and surreal, rustic and glam.
A steak dinner at Noce (Image: Renée Suen)
Big-spending downtown Torontonians have taken in the past few years to whining about Winterlicious, but the two-week dining festival, running from January 28 through February 10, remains popular for a reason: it offers great value, particularly if you choose your reservations well. Here are a dozen of Toronto Life’s best bets. They’re older, more established places, generally, with kitchens that clearly care. And though we haven’t yet tasted the restaurants’ 2011 Winterlicious menus, they’re full of interesting, delicious-sounding picks.
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For one artistically inclined couple, a late-night foray into on-line dating led to DIY domestic bliss
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Fourteen years after first opening, Canoe is closing its door to undertake a major renovation starting New Year’s Day. The million-dollar revamp, which partner Michael Bonacini calls “a 30-day extravaganza,” will include top-to-bottom redecoration, Canadiana accents and a fresh menu. “We need to continue to reinvent to keep Canoe pointed true north,” says Bonacini, “and, of course, afloat.”
What happens when a preservation-minded art lover marries a professional minimalist
By 2008, Victoria Jackman and Bruce Kuwabara, Toronto’s artsiest power couple, decided their family of four had outgrown their Admiral Road Victorian. Neither Jackman, executive director of the Hal Jackman Foundation, nor Kuwabara, the architect and co-founder of KPMB, wanted to leave the Annex, but Kuwabara wasn’t wild about renovating another Victorian—the predominant architectural style in the neighbourhood.
Then they saw this Lowther Avenue house built in 1893 by Edmund Burke, the same architect who designed the Bloor Viaduct and The Bay on Queen (back when it was Simpson’s). The 5,500-square-foot house had been converted into a warren of lawyer’s offices, but once Kuwabara got his hands on the 100-year-old blueprints, he was impressed by the building’s great bones. It wasn’t far from the Av and Dav flower stores Jackman loves, and Kuwabara, who refuses to get a driver’s licence, likes that they can still walk to their favourite restaurants (Sotto Sotto and Joso’s) and to such cultural institutions as the ROM and the Gardiner. They decided to buy the place and gut it.
The couple wanted an open, bright and calming space.
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