This Cabbagetown house was built by the man who founded Riverdale Farm, using bricks from a 19th-century factory that once rendered animals to make leather and glue.
Local contractor John O'Hara, who has built a reputation renovating quality homes in Rosedale and the Annex, purchased the heritage property from its original owner (who recently died at the age of 100) in June for $555,000. With his real-estate agent wife, Yvonne O'Hara, he is now flipping the house for close to $1-million.
The price reflects the amount of work it took to bring the house back to life. "The basement was a really nasty old cellar that I don't think had been touched since the house was built in 1906," says Mr. O'Hara, sitting in the home's new open-concept dining/living room.
Light radiates from behind his back, where a new kitchen, made of his own streamlined Shaker-style cabinetry, makes his description of the original house as "revolting" impossible to believe. But Mr. O'Hara, hammer in hand, drives the point home: "It was dark, with long narrow corridors that really just added up to a lot of wasted space."
He also moved the original staircase, replacing it with a new set of solidly built stairs that he relocated from the back to the front of the house. He finished the basement, turning it into a sun-saturated L-shaped rec room with a two-piece washroom.
Upstairs, he created a master bedroom with an en suite featuring a marble-encased bubble tub and porcelain floors.Verdant Wellesley Park is located on the home's front doorstep. Mr. O'Hara has introduced large windows and a new front-of-house deck to maximize views of what used to be the site of Lamb's Blacking and Glue Manufactory, founded in 1848.
A fire destroyed the plant in 1910, and afterward, proprietor Daniel Lamb, a former alderman who in 1894 founded Toronto's first zoo (now Riverdale Farm), gave the land to the city to be used as a park.
The details
- HOUSE: Two-storey house at 23 Hillcrest Park
- ASKING PRICE: $959,000
- TAXES (2007): $4,597.13
- LOT SIZE: 22 by 82 feet
- HOUSE SIZE: 1,350 square feet, above grade
- NUMBER OF BEDROOMS: Three
- NUMBER OF BATHROOMS: Four
- AMENITIES: New wooden porch at front of house, with walk-out from kitchen, overlooking the park; new stainless steel appliances; red oak floors.
- OPEN HOUSE: Today and tomorrow, 2 to 4 p.m.
- LISTING AGENT: Yvonne O'Hara, salesperson, Re/Max Unique Inc. 416-928-6833.
