Farzad and Connie started thinking about building a house five years ago when they were living in Cambridge, England. Farzad was finishing his doctorate in management and Connie was working for a Dutch bank. Their two kids were young, and the couple wanted to settle in Toronto, where Farzad grew up (Connie is from Hong Kong). They imagined a house that was minimalist but kid-friendly, environmentally conscious but not visibly so, and most importantly, adaptable. They hired the architect Paul Raff, and the resulting space, on a leafy street near Yonge and Eglinton, feels like a swanky yoga studio minus the mirrored walls. The kitchen is flanked by two identically sized spaces, which can be used interchangeably, as the living room or dining room—Farzad and Connie sometimes swap the two by season, eating next to the big backyard window in summer and cozying up by the same window to read in winter. The basement is kitted out with a kitchen in case their kids boomerang in their 20s and want their own space. And although the main level of the house is, right now, perfectly suited to family life, it was designed to be converted into a one-level retirement suite in the future, with Farzad’s office becoming a master bedroom and the entryway powder room becoming an ensuite.
Courtney Wotherspoon never intended to settle in Toronto. The 31-year-old illustrator and designer studied at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and always figured she’d start her professional career in New York. But U.S. visa issues got in the way, and she was forced to return, begrudgingly, to her hometown. She moved to Parkdale, which reminded her most of Williamsburg, and as she immersed herself in the city’s arts and culture scene over the next few years, she slowly fell in love with Toronto again—so much so that when, in 2010, she saw a 140-year-old Victorian semi for sale a few blocks away from her apartment, she decided to buy it. 
Jason Halter and Anita Matusevics met in architecture school at U of T 25 years ago. They got married, had two kids and landed jobs as designers at Bruce Mau’s office, collaborating with the likes of Frank Gehry and Rem Koolhaas. For the past decade, the couple have been strictly freelance, and their work has taken them to places like Italy and Africa. During their travels, they accumulated a startling collection of art—Picassos, Burtynskys, Basquiats—and designer furniture, which is showcased in their 3,300-square-foot Edwardian house near Avenue and St. Clair. The house had been given a mediocre renovation in the ’90s, so when they bought it in 2005, they gutted it with the help of Halter’s old friend John Shnier of Kohn Shnier Architects. There’s now a sleek galley kitchen with slate floors, a master bath with a shower that has a skylight (one day they hope to add a retractable skylight for showering in the rain), and a surprisingly large basement office where Halter and Matusevics do most of their work. Halter’s latest venture was inspired by the house. He and his tree biologist brother, Reese (who’s crashing in the sunroom for a while), are collaborating on water-efficient and bee-sensitive landscaping. Why? People keep knocking on the door to ask who designed their front yard. 
In the summer of 2007, Anna Zalewski quit her job as a Bay Street lawyer, sold her house in Riverdale and moved to Barcelona. Her plan was to decompress, soak up the sun, and maybe learn some Spanish. A year into her stay, she met another ex-lawyer, a Colombian-born man named Felipe Gil, who was studying human rights at the University of Barcelona. They fell in love. A year later, Zalewski was getting homesick, and Gil was eager to settle in Canada. Neither had a steady job in Spain, so they decided to plant roots in
Alan Hanlon and Andy Body rarely entertain at home. They prefer socializing at the Ritz-Carlton or La Société, and reserve invitations to their 1,800-square-foot Rosedale condo for the closest of friends—who are given an unforgettable lesson in gracious living. Now retired, Body spent his career as a choreographer and as a television director with the CBC. Hanlon worked for Rothmans, building its corporate art collection and organizing travelling exhibits for galleries like the AGO. The two of them have mixed and mingled with some of the most influential talents and talked-about people of the 20th century—Andy Warhol, Pierre Trudeau, Liza Minnelli—while travelling the world. Their home is an intensely personal reflection of their 51 years together. They can effortlessly recall the backstory of every painting, rug or chair. They’re both around 80, but the tales they tell make them seem like mischievous teenagers. Standing in front of a small etching, Body lowers his voice to a whisper. “I almost never show this to people. They think it’s just a sketch. They say, ‘Nice drawing.’ ” Turns out it’s a Rembrandt. 
Alex Jowett has led a peripatetic life. For much of the last decade, the photographer, designer and multimedia artist travelled the world with his camera and his surfboards, making money by publishing photos in travel magazines. When he was lured back to Canada in 2007 to set up an exhibition of his multimedia work at the Spoke Club, it was meant to be a pit stop. He stayed with friends for a few months, but got caught up in the Toronto art and design scene and decided it was time to look for a place of his own.
