ADDRESS: 138 Bedford Road

NEIGHBOURHOOD: The Annex

AGENT: Barry Smith, Chestnut Park Real Estate Limited, Brokerage

PRICE: $4,450,000

THE PLACE: Bringing a little of the 8th Arrondissement to the heart of the Annex, this Parisian-inspired townhome embodies European luxury with inlaid-pattern marble floors, traditional custom millwork, plaster cornice mouldings and fireplaces in nearly every principal room (many of them are even wood-burning).

BRAGGING RIGHTS: In the early 1900s, the property is rumoured to have been home to Robert Ernest Augustus Land, leader of the Toronto branch of the Knights of St. John and Malta (now defunct) and later president of the Laura Secord National Monument Committee, which often met at this address.

BIG SELLING POINT: The home underwent a major overhaul in 1991. Now, the generous 5,000-plus square feet of space—which includes five bedrooms (all with ensuite bathrooms) and communal living areas on two floors—emphasizes quality craftsmanship and exquisite attention to detail.

POSSIBLE DEAL BREAKER: Those with a green thumb may be disappointed by the lack of a backyard or front gardens, but in a city where parking is at a premium, the garage and brick motor court (with room for six cars) may not be such a bad thing.

BY THE NUMBERS:
• $4,450,000
• $17,918.05 in property taxes (2011)
• 5,000+ square feet
• 7 bathrooms
• 5 bedrooms
• 6 car parking (two-car garage)
• 5 fireplaces
• 3 skylights
• 1 wine cellar
• 1 “tree-like” chandelier

ADDRESS: 61 Brunswick Avenue

NEIGHBOURHOOD: University

AGENT: Kevin Alvarez, Royal LePage Real Estate Services Ltd., Brokerage

PRICE: $1,869,000

THE PLACE: A 117-year-old bay-and-gable that’s Victorian on the outside, modern but comfortable on the inside.

BRAGGING RIGHTS: Not only is the home located in one of Toronto’s Heritage Conservation Districts, but it was so lovingly restored in 2010 that it was acknowledged by the Globe and Mail, and its contractor, Alberto Merelles, won a Community Builder award from the Harbord Village Residents’ Association for his work.

BIG SELLING POINT: Your family won’t have to fight for the best bedroom, because all five are spectacular—including one with an oversized bay window, one with its own fireplace and one with a massive terrace. All five have their own ensuite bathrooms.

POSSIBLE DEAL BREAKER: You’ll have some serious existential angst—and an endless debate with your friends—about which neighbourhood you actually live in: aspirational neighbours will claim it’s the Annex; Annex purists will claim that the Annex is only north of Bloor; crafty realtors will, of course, say you live in the South Annex; some will say it’s Harbord Village or simply University; your foodie friends will just know it as the area around Splendido.

BY THE NUMBERS:
• $1,869,000
• $7,031 in property taxes
• 4,300 square feet
• 117 years old
• 6 bathrooms
• 5 bedrooms
• 3 fireplaces
• 3 storeys
• 3 parking spaces

Let’s face it: taking a peek through a stranger’s home gives us all a voyeuristic thrill. But aside from when a place goes up for sale, it’s pretty well impossible to get inside without breaking windows (and the law—an open house with a realtor is one thing; gaining access with a crowbar is completely another). That’s why we take such delight in scouring the city every week to find the most opulent, outrageous and storied church conversions, summer getaways and stately mansions on the market. Here, our 10 favorite houses, condos and cottages of the week from 2011 (with a yurt thrown in for good measure).

1. $3.75 million for a Victorian that’s Rosedale on the outside and wild on the inside
In leafy, upper-crust Rosedale, the patrician estates are pretty much all classic, subdued and refined—at least on the outside. Behind this redbrick Victorian façade is a Keith Richards–worthy trip of vibrant colours and patterns. Click here for more details and a photo gallery »

2. $2.8 million for a country home built by one of Canada’s most celebrated architects
This sprawling property in the middle of horse country will surely cause you to don riding jodhpurs, take up polo and start speaking with a British accent. Intricately crafted and designed by Ron Thom, a master architect who built the house for an equestrian-loving friend, we love how each room is perfectly positioned to capture stunning views of the surrounding landscape. Click here for more details and a photo gallery »

3. $4.2 million for renowned architect Elmar Tampõld’s Hoggs Hollow home
Proving that style in the ’80s wasn’t all about loud aesthetics—bouffant hair, bright neons, Madonna—architect Elmar Tampõld (who designed the elegant Colonnade building on Bloor Street West, in addition to some 1,000 others across Canada) built this place in 1986 for his own home, and it’s as stunning as it is refined. The cool white staircase that gracefully corkscrews from floor to floor is the most striking feature, but the lush setting is also remarkable. Click here for more details and a photo gallery »

4. $2.5 million to get into one of the Annex’s classic Victorians
No other style of house is more iconic in Toronto than the Annex Victorian, and this gorgeous bay-and-gable, with it two-storey wrap-around porch, is a standout example. Inside, the original chandeliers, sconces, fireplaces and hardwood floors embody the spirit of the era. Outside, the upper veranda is a great place to spy on the Annex’s new peerage class. Click here for more details and a photo gallery »

5. $8.5 million for the former Eaton family 2,500-acre hunting preserve
For some people, summer cottaging is as about as rustic as swatting away a few black flies between the door of their BMW SUV and the entrance to a hermetically sealed, air-conditioned palace. But we think that lacks charm. This former hunting preserve, however, is everything a cottage should be: pared down, close to nature and restful (granted any place would be restful surrounded by 2,500 acres of pristine wilderness). Click here for more details and a photo gallery »

6. A photographic tour of an Occupy Toronto yurt
Sometimes, the smallest spaces are the best spaces—cozy nooks, comfortable corners, intimate grottos. But small spaces aren’t often heroic, with the exception of the mini-yet-mighty yurt. At this year’s Occupy Toronto, the round, tent-like structure became a shelter for social upheaval, a barricade against oppression, and a library (!) all at once, not to mention being cuter than a bug’s ear (just look at all the hand-painted detail!). Click here for more details and a photo gallery »

7. $2.9 million for a house built in a ravine in Lawrence Park South
We’ve always thought that living in a tree house would be cool, but the lack of plumbing and inevitable bird infestation always discouraged us. Living among the trees in this contemporary architectural stunner is a far more appealing option—the spaces are clean-lined and bright, and the open-riser stairs are far easier to manoeuvre than a rope or a rickety ladder. Click here for more details and a photo gallery »

8. $3 million for an arty, three-level condo with a sense of drama
There are three things that make this condo stand out against the hordes of generic glass boxes rising across the city: exclusivity (its one of only 10 units in the building), space (a 6,000-square-foot, three-storey place is as hard to come by in Toronto as a winning sports franchise) and stuff (the original owner was a world-travelling collector). Sadly, none of the wares come with the place (including the stripper pole in the bedroom), but it should give the new owners some interesting decor ideas. Click here for more details and a photo gallery »

9. $1 million for the coolest converted-church condo we’ve seen yet
With the number of church conversions we’ve seen over the past few years, it seems that real estate is the city’s fastest growing religion (sorry, God). This condo, in the bell tower of the Gothic-revival Abbey Lofts, maintains the ecclesiastical feel in a particularly quirky way, with the original beam work left exposed and the top of the tower (now sans bell) turned into a glass-enclosed sun room. Click here for more details and a photo gallery »

10. A mansion in the sky at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and Residences
This is just about the most opulent, extravagant condo we saw all year. It’s on the 43rd floor of the new Ritz-Carlton building, so the space comes with an in-house gym, pool, room service, concierge and housekeeping. The most stunning feature, other than the tasteful, if traditional, decor is that the unit looks out onto Lake Ontario and the islands, so you’ll be able to keep an eye on your yacht in the harbor and  private jet at Billy Bishop. Click here for more details and a photo gallery »

Jamba Juice may not have Blue Jay José Bautista shilling for its smoothies, but the cult California chain probably doesn’t need him. Found in 1990, Jamba Juice served as the blueprint for a raft of Canadian smoothie joints like Booster Juice and Jugo Juice. Now the original mega-smoothie bar has opened its first Canadian location, on Bloor Street in the Annex, and we decided to take a look.

A glance at the smoothie sizes provides the first hint that this chain hails from south of the 49th, with the largest size, dubbed Power, dwarfing the mighty Big Gulp from the 7-Eleven down the street. Calorie counts are displayed alongside the menu options, ranging from 140 calories for a small Jamba Light smoothie to 770 calories for a “creamy treat” like Peanut Butter Moo’d. Of course, Jamba Juice is best known for its classic fruit juice and sherbet (or fro-yo) smoothies ($4.50–$5.95), like Banana Berry (banana, blueberry, raspberry and apple) and Orange-A-Peel (orange, strawberry and banana). The fruit and veggie smoothies ($4.95–$6.45) such as Apple ’n’ Greens and Berry UpBeet tout three full servings of fruits and vegetables for those looking for a bit more substance.

Unlike the American locations, where an additional “booster” is included in every smoothie, here they’ll charge an extra 50 cents if you’re hoping to throw in some “Energy,” “Immunity,” or a dose of daily vitamins (with the exception of a couple pre-boosted smoothies like the Coldbuster and Protein Berry Workout). In addition to its liquid meals, Jamba Juice also offers breakfast items, like steel-cut oatmeal cooked in soymilk and topped with brown sugar crumble ($3.50), fruit and yogurt parfaits ($4.95–$5.50), PopChips and, naturally, bottles of Fiji Water to wash it all down.

Jamba Juice, 495 Bloor Street West (just west of Brunswick), jambajuice.ca

Photographs: Houses by Daniel Neuhaus; faces by George Pimentel and CP Images

Elbow-patched academics, keg-emptying frat boys and earthy middle-incomers have long ruled the Annex. But lately, a clutch of moneyed, high-powered Forest Hill and Rosedale types have wandered south, looking for cool downtown bustle without having to give up the acreage. And who can blame them? The east Annex is a natural geographical nexus for the intellectual and moneyed elite, what with U of T and all the museums to the south, and the revamped Bloor Street promenade—not to mention Whole Foods—a short stroll away. The choicest address is Admiral Road, a winding, bucolic boulevard with huge heritage homes ripe for renovation. Margaret Atwood is its most famous resident; she’s lived there since ’85. Ex-GG Adrienne Clarkson became her neighbour in ’05. Adrienne’s ex-hubby, eminent egghead Stephen Clarkson, is down the way on Lowther—a strip dotted with luminaries like George Cohon of McDonald’s and real estate king Jimmy Molloy. Above, we chart the most recent arrivals to Toronto’s newest Golden Mile.

Chef Véronique working a crêpe machine (Image: Gizelle Lau)

Crêpes à GoGo first started building its cult following at the corner of Bedford and Bloor in 2002, decamping for 18 Yorkville Avenue five years later to make way for a condo development. Now owner Véronique Perez—known to her customers as Chef Véronique—has returned to the Annex with a new location at Bloor and Spadina.

Taking over the former Bubble Tease shop two doors away from that other Annex dessert staple, Greg’s Ice Cream, the cozy new location is open from about 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. to satisfy everything from late breakfasts to after-dinner indulgences. The menu is the same as at the Yorkville location, with two styles of crêpes made from a barley-based batter: the restaurant’s signature rolled crêpes, where the pancake is taken off the round crêpe maker to cool slightly, then filled and rolled; and the traditional folded crêpe, that comes crispy and piping hot.

Savoury crêpes include the Crêpe Madame, Mademoiselle or Monsieur ($10); the Cote D’Azur with goat cheese, tomato and basil ($8.50); and the Nicoise with mozzarella, tuna, tomatoes, black olives, za’atar and basil ($10). Then, of course, there are dessert crêpes, like the Tartinade with chocolate-hazelnut spread ($6), the Julia with dark chocolate and raspberry jam ($7) or the Véronique crêpe with brie, fresh strawberries, baby spinach and maple syrup ($9.50). Crêpes are served in brown paper bags which can be taken to go or enjoyed at one of the few café tables, along with a café au lait (Chef Véronique swears it’s one of the best in the city) or a bottle of Limonana, her Middle Eastern–inspired lemon-mint drink ($3 per bottle).

Crêpes à GoGo, 750 Spadina Ave. (entrance on Bloor St.), crepesagogo.com

By Tony Keller | Photo Illustration by Lindsay Page

Late last year, Marlon Pather, owner of a midtown meat shop called The Butchers, embarked on an ambitious plan to sell thousands of online coupons. Like other merchants seized by the daily deal mania of websites such as Groupon, he thought that his deep discounting would bring in new shoppers. It did. He quickly became Canada’s biggest coupon merchant, selling 22,000 coupons, worth millions of dollars, in a few months. Pather thought the new customers would redeem the value of their coupons gradually, but they cashed in all at once. By spring, he realized that his loss leader strategy had turned into a straight loss. Customers were lined up around the block, and the fridge was constantly running out of stock. The coupon clients came for the discount—$400 worth of steaks and burgers for just $100—but every time the cash register rang, Pather lost money. And his established clients, who until then had been willing to pay full price, were having trouble even getting into the store.

The daily deal or group buying business is suddenly the hottest sector on the Internet. Groupon, the industry leader, has been described as history’s fastest-growing company, its annual sales ballooning to an estimated $3 billion in only three years of operation. In the first quarter of 2011, the company sold 28 million coupons. The simplicity of the idea has spawned hundreds of imitators, and they all work on the same model: customers pay up front for vouchers offering deep discounts, at prices usually at least 50 per cent below retail. Coupon revenue is generally split 50-50 between the daily deal company and the merchant—which means that a merchant offering $400 of meat for $100, as Pather did, is actually offering $400 of product for a payment to him of only $50. That’s nearly 88 per cent off retail price.

Toronto-based sites such as Dealfind, TeamBuy, Buytopia, WagJag (owned by Torstar) and WebPiggy are fighting for a piece of the action. There are sites targeting niches: Toronto’s Food Scrooge brings group buying to groceries; GroupDudes offers deals for guys. (I missed their coupon for 55 per cent off hockey equipment sanitizing.) Facebook, Google and Amazon are all entering the field. A survey released this spring by the market research firm Vision Critical found that 49 per cent of Canadians had already visited at least one daily deal site.

Groupon’s name is meant to suggest that savings come from large groups of people banding together to buy in bulk. The industry furthers this myth, describing itself as the “group buying” business. In reality, these sites are in the advertising business. Coupons are a great marketing tool. And some coupons, even those promising very deep discounts, can be immediately profitable—but only for certain kinds of businesses. For companies whose main costs are mostly or entirely fixed—such as salaries and rent—deep discounts can be profitable.

That’s why you see so many salons, gyms and dance studios offering online coupons. The marginal cost of adding one more student to a salsa dancing class is zero. The business’s costs—the rental of a classroom, the hiring of an instructor—are fixed. It costs no more to teach 20 students than it does to teach 10, which is why a dance studio that has already charged full price to the first 10 students may still turn a profit on the next 10, even if it only charges them pennies on the dollar. Airlines have long worked on a similar principle, with passengers paying wildly different prices for seats on the same flight, depending on when they buy them.

They love it. We want it. Three red-hot releases

“Troll Hunter is Norway’s answer to the ‘found footage’ trend. It’s funny and absorbing, more akin to a comic This Is Spinal Tap mockumentary than a terrifying Paranormal Activity horror. Otto Jesper­sen is wonderfully deadpan as Hans, a government worker whose job killing trolls involves long hours and low pay, so he confides in three amateur filmmakers. The movie also shows off the lush Norwegian landscape.”
—Kate McEdwards Staffer at Queen Video on Queen

Troll Hunter, directed by André Øvredal (Aug. 23)

The Rip Tide, Beirut (Aug. 30)

The Cat’s Table, Michael Ondaatje (Aug. 30)

(Illustrations by Jacqui Oakley. Images: top courtesy of Magnolia Pictures; middle courtesy of Badabing Records; Bottom courtesy of McClelland and Stewart)

Rakim, the Queen West Art Crawl and Private Lives

1. PRIVATE LIVES
This 1930s comedy by Noël Coward is responsible for about three quarters of romantic comedies today. Just look at the plot: divorced couple Elyot and Amanda and their respective new partners find themselves on vacation at the same hotel on (wait for it) the French Riviera. Campy, banter-laden shenanigans ensue, naturally. Kim Cattrall and Paul Gross star as the lovely ex-couple, which sounds just about perfect. Sept. 16 to Oct. 30. $35–$175. Royal Alexandra Theatre, 260 King St. W., 416-872-1212, mirvish.com.

2. STIFFED! FILM FESTIVAL
TIFF wraps up this weekend but that won’t stop this indie film fest from trying to steal its thunder just a little. The filmmakers featured at this one-day event have three things in common: they’re all Canadian, they’ve all recently directed a short film and they were all passed over for a screening at TIFF. Sept. 18. $15. The Annex Wreck Room, 794 Bathurst St., stiffedfilmfest.com.

3. QUEEN WEST ART CRAWL (FREE!)
What once was a little arty thing in the west end has become a huge, three-day event that kicks off with a gala on Friday and includes artist talks, an outdoor art show and sale and the unmissable night crawl. On Saturday night between 7 and 11 p.m., stroll along West Queen West and you’ll stumble upon the cage match edition of the popular Art Battles at Parts and Labour, karaoke and live portrait drawings at Mitzi’s Sister, a reading of “Tales of Civil Panic” by Sylvia Ziemann and tons of exhibits, live performances and other art-related wonderfulness. Sept. 16 to 18. Queen St. W. between Bathurst and Roncesvalles, queenwestartcrawl.com.

4. CANADIAN SHORELINE CLEANUP (FREE!)
This weekend will see legions of volunteers doing their part to save aquatic wildlife from rogue plastic bags and other trash. Volunteers will be cleaning up the shorelines of major bodies of water in 152 countries and logging what they find to help Ocean Conservancy put together a “global snapshot” of the pollution situation in the world’s oceans, lakes and rivers. Lake Ontario is very much on that list. Sept. 16-25. Cherry Beach and other GTA locations, 416-978-7879, shorelinecleanup.ca.

5. MANIFESTO FESTIVAL
This one is for Toronto’s hip-hop heads. An 11-day festival of art, culture and, of course, music, it includes performances, movie screenings, street dance and panel discussions and appearances from big names like Rakim and Kid Capri, Zaki Ibrahim, Afrika Bambaataa, Eternia and Michie Mee. This weekend check out the new artist showcase and the day-long celebration of women and trans artists. There’s also 106 and York, an associated festival celebrating the music scene in Jane and Finch, Rexdale and Weston-Mount Dennis. Sept. 15 to 25. Various prices. Various locations, themanifesto.ca/festival.

6. CITY CIDER
Sure, fall doesn’t technically start for another few days, but you’d never know it from the looks of this family-friendly jamboree. Snack on roasted corn and freshly pressed apple cider, tour the heritage urban apple orchard and take in some tunes by the appropriately named Toronto folk outfit Orchards. Sept. 18. $5. Spadina Museum, 285 Spadina Rd., notfarfromthetree.org.

7. TERRY FOX RUN
Every year, millions of Canadians lace up their running shoes, pull on a sweatband or two and take to the streets to raise money for the Terry Fox Foundation, which funds cancer research. Fox ran the equivalent of a marathon every day between April and September 1980—that’s 5,373 kilometres in 143 days—before he was forced to halt the Marathon of Hope when his primary bone cancer spread to his lungs. Even after all these years, it’s hard not to be inspired. Sept. 18. Various locations, 416-924-8252, terryfox.org.

8. FLEURETTE AFRICAINE
Inspired by the Duke Ellington composition of the same name, this poignant performance explores the complicated relationships between the African continent and its diaspora in Canada and around the world. An interdisciplinary undertaking by the new Wind in the Leaves Collective, the show is part dance, part poetry and part visual art. Sept. 17. $20. Dancemakers, Distillery District, Case Goods Warehouse, 55 Mill St., Bldg. 74, Suites 313 and 314, facebook.com/windintheleavescollective.

(Images: Rakim, Flowizm; Art Crawl, Alfred Ng from the Torontolife.com Flickr pool; Private Lives, Nobby Clark)

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
By Philip Preville | Photography by Stephanie Noritz

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.

Porter and Low’s weekend escape strategy was symptomatic of their over-engineered city lives. To juggle all their needs and obligations—two careers, mortgage payments, bills, kid drop-offs and pickups, groceries, meals—they had built a life that resembled a Rube Goldberg machine, and any misstep threatened to collapse the entire contraption. Grandparents were often called in to shuttle the kids to lessons and play dates and birthday parties. “My mother-in-law would phone me at work and ask, ‘Where is Amelia’s dance outfit?’ and my stress level would go through the roof, ” recalls Low. “I’d say, ‘Why are you calling me at work for this? It’s in the house somewhere. Don’t ask me, ask Brian.’ ”

Porter’s more flexible hours allowed him to handle most of the household duties (he typically works seven 24-hour shifts every four weeks), while Low would often leave the house at 7 a.m. and return 12 hours later. When Porter was on shift Low would pick up the slack, but the moment he returned she’d play catch-up at work. They didn’t realize, at first, that the routine was taking a toll on their marriage. “Sometimes I’d come home from a shift and she’d hand me the baton and head out the door,” Porter recalls. “I’d barely be able to stand up, but I’d feed the girls and send them off on their day. Carrie and I were like two ships passing in the night.” You might even say they were behaving like an already-divorced couple sharing care of the kids. “If we kept it up, I could not be sure that we would still care about one another five or 10 years down the road,” says Low.

The problem, they decided, was not each other or their careers or their kids, but the city itself—a surprising diagnosis given that they had both grown up in Toronto, happily, in the Beach. They bought their 1,600-square-foot detached home on Benlamond because they wanted to raise their family there, too. “The Beach tends to keep people,” says Porter. “I can walk along Queen East any day of the week and meet friends from high school who run businesses on that street.” But living in the city required too many contortions. They decided to divorce it.

They spent months searching for a new home, pushing the outer boundaries of the GTA as they went. Low was adamant: “I didn’t want a suburban house.” In the end they moved as far away from Toronto as they possibly could for a couple whose livelihoods still depended upon the city: Cobourg, the Lake Ontario town with its own lovely beach and boardwalk, just this side of Prince Edward County. The only thing separating the gigantic walkout basement of their new, 2,700-square-foot detached house from the Lake Ontario waterfront is a municipal park. And the cottage run is a one-hour scenic drive along quiet secondary highways.

ADDRESS: Unit 2002, 1 Bedford Rd.

NEIGHBOURHOOD:  The Annex

AGENT: Vicky Tal and Meir Gluzberg, Harvey Kalles Real Estate Ltd., Brokerage

PRICE: $1,629,000

THE PLACE: This 20th-storey unit in the newly completed One Bedford condos is defined by a beautiful south-facing view of the Toronto skyline and a variety of custom finishes: a leather-upholstered wall in the master bedroom, a light box in the master ensuite shower, his-and-hers master closets, a custom kitchen by Paris Kitchens and, of course, a wall-mounted iPad to control the sound system.

BRAGGING RIGHTS: A one-of-a-kind view. One of the first to buy in the building, the original owner actually stood on Bloor Street to line up his front door directly with the CN Tower. Walk into the apartment and the city’s tallest structure looms right in front of you. As well, the bulkheads, which traditionally sit in front of the windows, are moved back to provide an unobstructed view of downtown.

BIG SELLING POINT: That sweet south-facing view is essentially protected. Because Varsity Stadium sits immediately in front of One Bedford and many of the buildings between it and downtown are heritage properties, rival condo towers won’t usurp the sweeping vista any time soon.

POSSIBLE DEAL BREAKER: The proximity to the University of Toronto and the student bars in the Annex may provide too much unadulterated noise, chatter and unruly behaviour for a downtown professional.

BY THE NUMBERS:
• $1,629,000
• $956.81 monthly maintenance
• 1,521 square feet
• 105 square foot balcony
• 3 bathrooms
• 2 bedrooms
• 1 wall-mounted iPad
• 1 Danby wine fridge

By Tony Keller

(Image: Steve Brodner)

Hey you. Yeah, you on the bike. You, NOW magazine reader, fair trade lentil soup eater, citizen of the People’s Republic of the Annex-Riverdale-CBC Consensus. Allow me to introduce you to the guy who wants to destroy your world. His name is Nick Kouvalis. He’s quite the amiable fellow.

Kouvalis, a former Chrysler assembly line worker, autodidact campaign strategist and long-time Conservative organizer, was the field marshal behind Rob Ford’s election victory. Together with Richard Ciano, the former VP of the Conservative Party of Canada and his business partner in the polling and marketing agency Campaign Research, he figured out what Toronto voters wanted and found a way to package Ford as the embodiment of those desires. For a few months after the election, he was the mayor’s chief of staff. Then, last January, he stepped down in preparation for a bigger act on a bigger stage. He’s building a new organization, tentatively called the Respect for Taxpayers Action Group. He aims to make the Ford Nation phenomenon permanent and take it national. He claims he already has several hundred thousand dollars in pledges, and he hopes to gain support not just from conservatives, but from populists across the political spectrum.

Kouvalis plans to steal a page from his enemy’s playbook. The enemy is the Working Families coalition, a collection of unions that for the last eight years has targeted the Ontario Progressive Conservatives while helping—though not officially—the Liberals. “We’re way behind the Left,” Kouvalis told me. “My opponents hate everything that we stand for and that we want to do. But they’re already doing everything we want to do.”

As a citizen lobby group, Working Families enjoys a kind of fence-straddling legal status: it isn’t a political party but sure behaves like one, running effective campaigns to unseat political opponents and support friends, while operating outside of the constraints of election finance rules.

Thanks to union dues, Working Families has an almost bottomless war chest. In the 2003 election, it helped defeat the provincial Conservatives with TV ads portraying Ernie Eves as a sly elitist, under the tag line “Not this time, Ernie.” In 2007, it hammered John Tory for “putting public education at risk” with his plan to fund religious schools. Earlier this year, it began its most ambitious and expensive ad campaign yet. The 30-second TV spots, launched during the Academy Awards broadcast, aim to do to Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak what the federal Tories’ “Just Visiting” campaign did to Michael Ignatieff: frame him.

One of the ads features a triumvirate of old white guys in suits—Evil doesn’t believe in employment equity, apparently—giving a political toady named “Tim” his marching orders. He’s told to “cut, cut, cut!” to protect their “human right to make as much money as possible.” When he agrees, they praise him as one might a newly housebroken golden retriever: “Attaboy!”

The Tories have for years urged Elections Ontario to treat Working Families as an arm of the Liberal Party. Under Ontario law, individuals, corporations and unions may donate a maximum of $15,500 a year to a party and its candidates—a rule that, if imposed on Working Families, would shut down its costly ad campaigns. So far, Elections Ontario and the courts have disagreed with the Tories’ view, and they probably always will: constitutional rights to free speech and association should trump election finance laws, especially outside of an election.

While political parties are stuck working within those fundraising and spending rules, Working Families has effectively built a parallel track, where you’re free to raise as much money as you can, from whomever you want, and to spend it however you like. So far, all of the action has been on one side of the ideological divide. Which is where Kouvalis comes in. He wants to improve on Working Families’ methods and defeat it in the court of public opinion. He’ll also be stealing some of the Left’s most cherished buzzwords—such as “grassroots.”

Kouvalis has a built-in audience in the voters who swept Ford into office, the so-called Ford Nation, people who coalesced around the “gravy train” and “respect for taxpayers” rhetoric. He thinks he can form them into a standing army, one that will eventually have more money, votes and influence than Working Families. Why? Because it will be a voluntary movement. He describes Working Families, not entirely inaccurately, as a case of the unions getting together, deciding what or whom to oppose and allocating the money. “People at the grassroots level aren’t engaged,” he says. And parties that rely too much on a small number of big donors eventually run into big trouble.

Some of Yorkville and the Annex’s best restaurants participate in Summerlicious each year. Here, 14 of Toronto Life’s favourites.

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(Image: Nicole Villeneuve)

The sign still reads “Chippy’s,” but it won’t stay that way for long. The Bloor Street West location of the self-proclaimed “rock ’n’ roll chip shop” is no longer, and the windows are now covered with the distinct caricature and familiar red-and-black flannel motif of the incumbent Smoke’s Poutinerie.

Smoke’s head honcho Ryan Smolkin told us that he’d been eyeing a Bloor Street location since he first opened the chain in 2008. In fact, franchise owner Randy Kitagawa was one of the first on board, but had to wait over a year and a half until an opportunity in the busy, student-filled area opened up (a dozen Smoke’s franchises later, ironically).

Enter Chippy’s. When Smolkin got word that Chippy’s was looking to get out of their lease, he arranged to take it over on May 9, aiming to open his doors to the poutine-mad public on June 6. Meanwhile, Chippy’s president John Lee assures us that they will be relocating in the fall (there’s also a Queen West location opposite Trinity Bellwoods Park). “It was an ideal and opportune moment for us, and we are very happy with the deal,” Lee says.

Despite the fact that Smoke’s serves up 22 varieties of the Québécois classic (from Veggie Delux to Curry Chicken poutine), Smolkin is the first to tell you that it’s the “Canadiana, ’80s glam rock”–inspired experience, as well as the face of the franchise, the mystery-shrouded Smoke, that bring people back. It also might have something to do with serving Toronto’s favourite drunken late-night food until four in the morning. We suspect they’ll do just fine in the new location.

Listed for: $1.099 million. Relisted for: $999,000. Sold for: $960,000

The Sellers: Joan Bosworth (below), 60 years old and now retired, was formerly general manager of Opera Atelier and director of development for Canadian Stage. Her sister, Susan Hammond, is a 62-year-old classical pianist and six-time Juno winner.

The Property: A 2,000-square-foot, 19th-century coach house on Kendal Avenue near Spadina Road. It belonged to Bosworth and Hammond’s parents, Bess and James A. Murray, an architect.

The Story: The sisters inherited the place when their mother died suddenly last year (their father had died two years earlier). They rented it out for a year before putting it on the market.

The Prep: Murray had completely redone the interior in a mid-century modern style, and it was immaculately maintained. Bosworth’s agent, Ophira Sutton, recommended nothing more than a few paint touch-ups. “From the outside, it looks like a little coach house,” says Bosworth. “But the inside has almost a Frank Lloyd Wright feel.”

The Offers: The sisters first listed on October 13. Though there were many curious visitors, the offers were few. A month later, they reduced the price to $999,000. In all, they received five offers, including a decent one from a builder who saw the teardown potential of a small house on a large lot. But they wanted to sell to someone who would honour the house, not obliterate it. In the end, they picked the highest bid—$960,000—from among the buyers who liked the house the way it was.

(Photo of Bosworth: John Cullen)