Home of the Week, 377 Sackville St., Toronto. Credit Re/Max Hallmark Realty Ltd.
377 SACKVILLE ST., Toronto
WHAT: The Shields House,circa 1876, which has been owned by the same family for almost 100 years. The three-storey house offers 3,400 square feet of living space with six bedrooms and two bathrooms.
ASKING PRICE: $1.8-million
TAXES: $8,101.18 (2009)
AGENT: Re/Max Hallmark Realty Ltd. (Patrick Gillis)
The house at 377 Sackville, with its façade of grey stone, has long stood out from most of the other homes that line the Cabbagetown street. The neighbouring houses are mainly constructed of the red clay brick that was widely used in the Victorian era.
The mansard roof and simple lines also set it apart from the ornate Victorian turrets and steeply pitched roofs that surround it.
The imposing façade attracted admirers over the years.
"About every month we would find a note through the door: 'We want to buy your house'," recalls George Tipton, whose family has owned the manse for nearly 100 years.
Indeed, Mr. Tipton cannot remember a time when the house on Sackville has not been filled with generations of his large and close-knit family.
Mr. Tipton and three brothers and sisters were raised in the house, as his father was before him. Now a younger generation of the same family is preparing to leave the three-storey house.
Real-estate agent Patrick Gillis of Re/Max Hallmark Realty Ltd. says the house has many of its original details. Plaster medallions embellish the ceilings and antique fireplace surrounds still stand. A staircase leading to the second floor also dates to the late 1800s.
The ceilings on the main floor are 101/2-feet high and tall doors separate the rooms. From the dining room, French doors lead to a covered porch at the side of the house.
Mr. Gillis says the house is in need of updating and renovation. The Tiptons would prefer to see it preserved as a single-family home.
"We're looking at someone taking on a restoration," says Mr. Gillis. "It will take someone with some heart to restore this old mansion."
Mr. Tipton says Cabbagetown was first developed by Irish immigrants, who were soon followed by a wave of Macedonian arrivals to the neighbourhood.
The Tipton family, of Greek-Macedonian descent, purchased the house from another Macedonian family with the name of Peroff. Before that, the house belonged to a dealer in livestock named Francis Shields.
Historical records suggest the house was commissioned by the Shields family in 1876.
During the economic Depression of the 1930s, Mr. Tipton says, many members of the extended family arrived from Macedonia under his parents' sponsorship.
The large house accommodated many immigrants over the years as they got their start in Canada.
"The house was divided up for about five families," says Mr. Tipton.
Mr. Tipton's father had a wholesale fish business. His mother was a stay-at-home-mom to four children and his grandmother - who lived with the family - taught English to the Macedonian community.
Mr. Tipton recalls a house full of visitors because his gregarious father was very involved in Toronto's music scene. One evening he heard his father inviting a group of new friends into the front hall. It turned out to be the Downchild Blues Band.
"This door was never locked," he says.
Mr. Tipton says he and his siblings - along with the younger generation - are sorry to see the old homestead leave the Tiptons' hands after so many generations.
"It's bittersweet in a way," says Mr. Tipton. "It's home."
Carolyn Ireland