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Great Spaces: a Yonge and Eglinton home that’s designed to age gracefully

Great Spaces: a Yonge and Eglinton home that’s designed to age gracefully

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.

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Great Offices: a digital design agency’s ultra-playful King West digs

Great Offices: OneMethod

What: OneMethod, a digital design agency whose portfolio includes Wrigley, Moosehead, Nokia, Quiznos and Nestlé
Where: The early 1900s Krangle Building at King and Spadina
How Big: 5,700 square feet for a staff of 30

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The Informer

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Great Offices: Torys’ gallery-like headquarters at Wellington and York

Great Spaces: Torys'

What: Famed corporate law firm Torys’ Toronto headquarters
Where: The soaring steel and glass Toronto-Dominion Centre at Wellington and York
How Big: 180,000 square feet over nine floors for a staff of 700

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Extreme Makeover: a ho-hum Roncesvalles Victorian gets a rustic-modern overhaul

Character Piece: a blank canvas for rustic-modern tastes

Not long ago, Emma Reddington and Myles McCutcheon—she’s an interior designer, he’s a photo editor—were on the hunt for a character-rich historic house in the west end. But they didn’t want to tear down too many walls to make it livable. They finally chose a tired but solid Roncey Victorian with original details, including a stained glass transom and a cast iron claw-foot tub. Reddington, co-owner of the firm Marion Melbourne and founder of the design blog The Marion House Book, planned a makeover that would highlight the home’s pedigree and reflect her vintage-meets-metropolitan style. She decided to sand and oil the oak floors and re-plaster and whitewash the faded yellow walls to create a neutral backdrop for her rustic decor. Many of these items were architectural reclamation finds from the Dundas West shop Post and Beam, and antiques from the St. Lawrence Market. The only room that was demolished was the kitchen, which gained a 36-inch industrial stove and an elegant Calacatta marble wall. Reddington designed a walnut shelving unit to give the room its warmth and painted one wall black for contrast. Her work on the house isn’t done; “We just flipped the dining room and living room,” Reddington says. They have a three-year-old son, Henry, and she’s redoing the guest room for baby number two. “If I live here for 20 years, it’ll be a 20-year project.”

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Extreme Makeover: a designer brings old Hollywood glamour to a drab Rosedale home

Before and After: 1930s Homage
Interior designer Theresa Casey lives for large-scale projects. So when she and her husband, graphic designer Robert Gray, began a house hunt, her goal was “to buy a box and make it our own.” A 1930s brick Rosedale home with a forgettable interior was the ideal big, messy job. Among its dysfunctions: a cumbersome wall divided the main floor down the middle, and Moroccan arches made rooms heavy and funereal. The sole, tiny bathroom was at the top of the stairs. After the space was gutted, Casey sourced all-new decor and had much of it custom made. She explored a period design, mixing traditional elements with 1930s modernism. The master bath now has smoky, Old World glamour, with black glass and Negro Marquina marble, cherrywood accents and vintage brass faucets. The petite kitchen is modelled after the galley in a cabin on a luxury ocean liner, with Statuario marble and unlacquered brass. Casey brought in vintage hardware and custom cherry doors for all the entranceways. The dining room’s grillwork is salvaged from the Eaton’s College Park building (now the Carlu), another dramatic art deco touch.

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Great Spaces: a Yorkville condo becomes the ultimate party pad

Great Spaces: a Yorkville condo becomes the ultimate event space

Leerom Segal’s Yorkville penthouse exists, almost exclusively, for parties. Segal, the 33-year-old president and CEO of the digital marketing firm Klick Health, travels for work most weeks. So when he’s home, he likes to see his friends. And when he sees his friends, he likes to show them a good time. Last year, he decided to turn his condo, which he’d been living in since 2009, into an event space, a modern-day Gatsby–esque playground for killer barbecues and splashy all-night dinners.

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Extreme Makeover: a Baby Point house loses walls and gains an airy main floor

Extreme Makeover: a Baby Point house loses walls and gains an airy main floor

Situated on a 250-foot lot overlooking a ravine and the Humber River, Tom and Jenni Kapler’s 3,200-square-foot house in Baby Point had all the space in the world. But the 1940s home (where Tom grew up) just didn’t function for a family of five. It had an awkward layout: a collection of isolated, bizarrely proportioned rooms that felt confining, and small windows that diminished the ravine view. Architect Paul Raff started by updating the master bedroom and adding a large ensuite. Then he blew out the walls on the main floor to create a family-centric Bulthaup kitchen that’s three times the size of the original. Now, new glass doors lead out to the backyard. Raff also reimagined the living room as a modern entertainment space with a limestone fireplace and built-in shelving (joined to a picture rail) that covers up the old radiators. During the lengthy construction, the Kaplers practically cohabitated with the contractors and constantly moved around to avoid the cordoned-off areas. For a stretch, they set up a cooking area in the laundry room. “The kids totally adapted,” says Tom. “It was kind of like camping.”

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Great Spaces: a designer’s Brooklyn sensibility finds a home in Parkdale

Great Spaces: a designer’s Brooklyn state of mind finds a home in T.O.

Great Spaces: a designer’s Brooklyn state of mind finds a home in T.O.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.

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Great Spaces: two architects ­showcase an enviable collection of art in a house they helped redesign

Great Spaces: a couple of architects ­showcase an enviable ­collection of art, in a house they helped redesign

Great Spaces: a couple of architects ­showcase an enviable ­collection of art, in a house they helped redesignJason 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.

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Great Spaces: inside a couple’s modish Parkdale renovation

Great Spaces: returning from Barcelona, a couple makes Parkdale feel like home

Great Spaces: returning from Barcelona, a couple makes Parkdale feel like homeIn 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
Toronto, together.

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Great Spaces: five tiny homes that prove tight spaces can be completely comfortable

Toronto homes are getting smaller by the second—250-square-foot units are coming soon to a condo near you. Here, a look at how a few of the city’s early adopters have embraced the life Lilliputian

By Frances McInnis and Marit Mitchell | Photography by Derek Shapton |
Styling by Annie McDonald

Great Spaces: a 579-square-foot one-bedroom condo in the ­Distillery District

1| A 579-square-foot one-bedroom condo in the
­ Distillery District

Great Spaces: a 566-square-foot infill house near Gerrard and Coxwell

2| A 566-square-foot infill house near Gerrard and Coxwell

Great Spaces: a 655-square-foot condo in the Annex

4| A 655-square-foot condo in the Annex

Great Spaces: a 580-square-foot loft in a four-storey building on King Street East

5| A 580-square-foot loft in a four-storey building on King Street East

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Great Spaces: a Rosedale couple fills their condo with curios gathered over 51 years together

Great Spaces: a Rosedale couple fills their condo with curios gathered over 51 years together

Great Spaces: a Rosedale couple fills their condo with curios gathered over 51 years togetherAlan 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.

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Great Spaces: an artist takes the live-work concept to extremes

A home turned into a workshop, showroom and retail space

Great Spaces: an artist takes the live-work concept to extremes, turning his home into a workshop, showroom and retail space

Great Spaces: an artist takes the live-work concept to extremes, turning his home into a workshop, showroom and retail spaceAlex 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.

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Great Spaces: a graffiti-covered west end warehouse hides a loft of airplane hangar proportions

Great Spaces: Go Big, or Go Home Great Spaces: Go Big, or Go Home

A varnished cedar gate with a doorknob is the only indication that the commercial-looking building near Bloor and Dovercourt is still in use. The address doesn’t show up on most GPS systems, and it only got a postal code last year. This makes getting deliveries and hosting parties a little problematic, but Jonathan Rosenthal, a 47-year-old criminal defence attorney, is willing to put up with a few challenges in exchange for living in a truly unique space. When he bought the 8,000-square-foot warehouse five years ago, it was divided into small units (three residential and seven commercial), each with industrial-carpeted floors and tiny windows.

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Great Spaces: a Wychwood Park couple honours their home’s eccentric past

Great Spaces: Artist in Residence Great Spaces: Artist in Residence

Sarah Giacomelli grew up in the exclusive Wychwood Park area near Bathurst and Davenport, in an Arts and Crafts house next door to Marshall McLuhan. Her husband, Marc, a business consultant raised in Hamilton, had vowed early in their relationship to someday buy Sarah a place in her old neighbourhood. But houses within Wychwood’s gates don’t come on the market often. Twenty-two years ago, when the couple heard there might be a house for sale, they didn’t wait to see it before jumping. Sarah, now a real estate agent, immediately called up the owner, a friend of a friend, and made an offer.

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