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After successfully transforming Mediterra into the upscale Greek spot Estiatorio Volos, Andreas Antoniou has turned to another of the Richmond Street eateries formerly run by his restaurateur father, Bob. Little Anthony’s Italian Ristorante will re-open in March as Little Anthony’s Italian and Bar, in an overhauled space and with a new menu. “It’s similar to moving from Mediterra to Volos,” Antoniou told The Dish. “We want to take traditional dishes and present them in a clean fashion with really nice flavor combinations.”
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Old-school downtown Italian spot Little Anthony’s to receive Volos-like facelift
House of the Week: $5.5 million for Canada AM co-host Valerie Pringle’s Casa Loma mansion
ADDRESS: 3 Clarendon Crescent
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Casa Loma
AGENT: Leanne Weld, Royal LePage J&D Division, Brokerage
PRICE: $5,495,000
THE PLACE: Built in 1906, this brick and stone house sits on a double lot on a private road with only six other residences. It’s even a listed heritage property (but don’t worry, the interior isn’t ancient—the home underwent extensive renovations in 1996).
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Great Spaces: Two fixtures of the charity ball scene buy a party house to rival any event venue
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Max Gotlieb, a partner at Cassels Brock, and his wife, Heather, have lived together in Forest Hill since 1984. Though they spent much of the past two decades renovating their family home in the area (the couple jokes that they had a construction crew in their employ full-time), there was always another house on Heather’s mind. For years, she passed one of the neighbourhood’s most stately Georgian revivals while shuttling her three kids to school, and she dreamed of one day living there. It went on the market only once, briefly, in all those years, long before the Gotliebs were ready to move. Heather feared she had missed her chance. But in 2006, she and Max started talking about finding a larger space, and, miraculously, her dream house was up for sale. The place was massive—9,500 square feet—and perfect for entertaining, but outdated: the third floor had never been upgraded and was still laid out as servants’ quarters. They hired the developer Joe Brennan to update the house, completely gutting the upper floors. He also punched out the back to facilitate flow and add an additional 1,000 square feet (Max says the cost of buying and renovating was “many, many millions”). The Gotliebs don’t consider themselves philanthropists (“I’m not Peter Munk,” says Max), but they attend several fundraisers a week—and host many themselves, including large receptions and grand, expansive dinner parties. After all, they now have a home where they can entertain 200-plus people at a time—which is exactly why they bought it.
Great Spaces: a pair of German expat Canadaphiles build the house they had been dreaming about for 30 years
Georg and Petra Unger first came to Canada for a series of cross-country road trips in the early ’80s, eager to see the country’s expansive landscapes and modern residential architecture. As students in Germany—Petra studied interior design, Georg trained as a cabinetmaker—they had read about the Bridge House, a stone and glass box soaring over Stoney Lake in rural Ontario, by the architect Jim Strasman. “It was in all the architectural magazines at that time, and we thought Canada must be such a cool, design-forward place,” Petra says.
Office Space: $22.50 per square foot for some old-timey Casa Loma real estate (including a boardroom with a rotating bar)
ADDRESS: 287 Macpherson Avenue, suite 202
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Casa Loma
AGENT: Allan Consky, Royal LePage/ Johnston & Daniel Division, Brokerage
PRICE: $22.50 per square foot
OFFICE SPACE: An open-concept area with mill floors, exposed brick and oak panels in the boardroom that date back to the 193os.
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House of the Week: $1 million for a Yorkville sub-penthouse condo that’s styled like a clubland lounge
ADDRESS: 80 Cumberland Street, suite 1703
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Yorkville
AGENT: Eric Glazenberg, Keller Williams Realty
PRICE: $999,900 ($1,049,900 furnished)
THE PLACE: What’s black and white and velvet all over? This sub-penthouse loft in Yorkville’s “The Maxus.”
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Exodus to the burbs: why diehard downtowners are giving up on the city
The reasons to abandon the overcrowded, overpriced, not-so-livable city are beginning to outnumber the reasons to stay. More and more of us are tempted by the 905 and beyond. Screw Jane Jacobs. We’re outta here
Brian Porter and Carrie Low thought they’d hatched the perfect plan to avoid the eight-lane gridlock they faced every week on their drive to the family cottage in the Kawarthas. Porter, a soft-spoken 41-year-old Toronto firefighter, would arrange his work schedule to be home on Friday. He’d pack the car at noon and pick up his daughters, Lily and Amelia, from daycare shortly after lunch. Then, rather than head from their home in the Beach to pick up Low downtown, he’d drive to a strategic pit stop in Oshawa. Low, a slim 41-year-old redhead, works as a lawyer with RBC in the financial district, her days and nights packed, respectively, with meetings and paperwork. Her role in the escape plan was to get off work early and catch the GO train to Oshawa Station. Often, she’d end up working a pressure-packed day until 5 p.m. anyway, leaving Porter and the girls waiting at the station for hours. In the end they never gained that much time—it could still be a challenge to get to the cottage before nightfall. But at least they’d avoided the worst hours on the DVP and the 401.
Introducing: Urban Eatery, the Eaton Centre’s new, disconcertingly Danish food court
The Eaton Centre’s new food court, featuring Panton S chairs. No, really. (Image: Caroline Aksich)
The food court experience is a notoriously horrible one. The ambiance is nonexistent, the options are limited to the typical fast-food chains, and the waste produced is enormous. For years, the Eaton Centre food court has been no exception—that is, until Cadillac-Fairview embarked on creating Canada’s first “destination food court” there. It took $48 million and 14 months of renovations to transform the subterranean food court into an “urban eatery”—something that feels more like Copenhagen (mid-century modern furniture, a red, white and wood colour palette) than Toronto—until you see the A&W at least.
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House of the Week: $3.7 million for a Hoggs Hollow home with a beautiful backyard
ADDRESS: 6 Green Valley Rd.
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Bridle Path – York Mills – Sunnybrook
AGENT: Geraldine Del Zotto, Harvey Kalles Real Estate Ltd., Brokerage
PRICE: $3,695,000
THE PLACE: The French countryside meets the Hamptons in this unique York Mills home, awash in vivid colours—magenta, apple green, lilac and royal blue.
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Great Spaces: An Aussie expat takes a sledgehammer to her Creemore farmhouse
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.”
Great Spaces: A Toronto screenwriting couple steals a home renovation idea from their own show
Karen Troubetzkoy and Derek Schreyer met at film school in Vancouver more than 15 years ago and have been romantically and professionally inseparable ever since. Nine years ago, they bought a 1940s two-storey home in Little Italy—their first house. It was stumbling distance from Café Diplomatico, Schreyer’s favourite hangout, and a bargain because it had been slow to sell.
House of the Week: $799,000 for a chic home in a trendy west-end neighbourhood
ADDRESS: 6 Shannon Street
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Palmerston–Little Italy
AGENT: Michael Camber, Bosley Real Estate Ltd., Brokerage
PRICE: $799,000
THE PLACE: Inside and out, this two-bedroom, three-bathroom row house in one of the Toronto’s hottest neighborhoods is the ideal home for a new family or a pair of up-and-coming young professionals. After a complete gutting and full-scale renovation in 2007, the house looks and feels brand new while still fitting into its traditional Victorian neighbourhood.
BRAGGING RIGHTS: The bright blue paint job, slatted wood detailing and manicured landscaping exude the kind of curbside charm that will make your neighbours wonder who the architect was.
BIG SELLING POINT: The backyard. Complete with integrated automated lighting, a bubble-rock fountain, two separate sitting areas—one with Nova Scotia slate—and a custom-designed garden by Mark Cullen, it’s the kind of space that makes any of the local patios seem completely redundant.
POSSIBLE DEAL BREAKER: The busy, fun-filled locale isn’t for everybody. The house is an urban oasis in so many ways—but the nearby College, Dundas and Ossington strips don’t exactly promise quiet, restful nights.
BY THE NUMBERS:
• $4,095 in taxes
• 3 bathrooms
• 2 bedrooms
• 2 backyard sitting areas
• 1 ensuite study
• 1 private front balcony
• 1 bubble-rock fountain
Gregory Burke pulled the Power Plant out of debt and enhanced its international reputation. Then, he quit.
Gregory Burke with Sarah Bywater, the former Power Plant head fundraiser, at the 2009 Power Ball (Image: George Pimentel)
The Power Plant’s first board meeting of the year was held at noon on Monday, February 7. The gallery, situated on prime waterfront property, is a magnet for the city’s wealthy society figures. The clubby board of governors reflects that. Trinity Jackman, an archaeologist and the daughter of Hal Jackman, is the vice-president. The Drake Hotel owner Jeff Stober is a member, as are Rosedale hostess and arts patron Elisa Nuyten and the entertainment lawyer Paul Bain. The board’s president is Shanitha Kachan, an art collector and the wife of investment guru Gerald Sheff. Kachan called to order what should have been a routine, low-key meeting. Then came the big revelation.
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Great Spaces: a 28-year-old architecture school grad brings a Dada-esque sensibility to a 700-square-foot Yorkville apartment
Alexander Josephson lived in Europe while completing a master’s degree in architecture. There, he was inspired by the work of Kurt Schwitters, a surrealist artist who created an almost unlivable space for himself in Weimar-era Germany. When Josephson moved back to his hometown of Toronto in 2009, he set out to design something equally bold: a raw space that rejects contemporary conventions about living.
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Romagna Mia to get a new look and a new name—and a goodbye feast
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For almost 14 years, co-owner and chef Gabriele Paganelli has been turning out reliable northern Italian classics at his restaurant Romagna Mia, not to mention the homemade salumi he was making way before it was cool. This Sunday, Romagna Mia will be closing its doors for good—and reopening in two and a half weeks as a new restaurant.
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