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On the same day I received a passionate phone call lamenting the continuing loss of architect Eden Smith's arts and crafts homes in Forest Hill (which I wrote about in January), I was fortunate enough to tour the 1913 Miller Lash House, thought to be the work of Buffalo's Edward B. Greene. This gem sparkles on the banks of Highland Creek on the grounds of the University of Toronto at Scarborough (UTSC).

It's a house that's so lovely, it's hard to believe it was almost lost.

Actually, no, in light of our treatment of heritage architecture in this city, it's not hard to believe at all.

The story of how the Miller Lash House was saved demonstrates that one person really can make a difference. In this case, that one person was Lyne Dellandrea. "Raccoons were actually living in that building when I took over," she laughs.

That was nine years ago. For more auspicious beginnings, rewind approximately 90 more years to when Mr. Lash, a wealthy Toronto businessman living in what is today the Society of Friends (Quakers) Meeting House at 60 Lowther Ave., was out for a country drive in his chauffeur-driven Stanley Steamer. Admiring the lush river valley and rolling fields of eastern Scarborough so much, he purchased a few hundred acres for a country residence.

Published dates for when the arts and crafts bungalow was completed vary, but Mrs. Dellandrea says 1913 is likely. The confusion, she explains, stems from the fact that it took years to build the house because not only was it "huge," Mr. Lash's architect decided he wanted newfangled poured concrete for the walls, making it one of the first Ontario houses in which this was done. Mrs. Dellandrea discovered this only after she began looking beyond the exterior river-pebble cladding (harvested from the site) and spent "a month crawling around the place on my hands and knees."

When Mr. Lash died, intestate, in 1941, the property sat until 1944 when insurance broker E.L. McLean "bought it for a song," she says. An extremely private individual, Mr. McLean was "livid when the Morningside overpass was put in because people could see his roof."

When the University of Toronto was looking to expand in the early 1960s, it waited until Mr. McLean was in a retirement home and negotiated the purchase with his children.

It was in the early 1970s, when the house was being used as a residence for the college's principal, that Mrs. Dellandrea first set eyes on the place. Her husband, Dr. Jon Dellandrea, had not only attended UTSC, he was then working there and, necessarily, attending functions. (He would become U of T vice-president and raise over a billion dollars in 2003.)

"I just fell in love with this house," she remembers. "I was just amazed that this house was hidden away like it was in this spacious valley."

More than 20 years later, after her husband had become vice-president, she asked then Scarborough principal Dr. Paul Thompson if he was living in the house she admired so much. He told her no one had lived in it since principal Dr. Ralph Campbell moved out in 1976, and that it was in pretty bad shape to boot. "I just casually said to him, 'If you ever want help restoring the house, call me.' "

Within months, he did, and so began her six-year journey of fundraising, team-building and gruelling restoration work. "It was one of those times in your life where everything you've ever done comes together to work for your benefit," says the 56-year-old, referring to prior experiences restoring an 1850s log house, selling antiques and observing her husband, the fundraising "guru," in action.

She stresses, however, that she could not have completed the Herculean task alone. "It takes somebody with a vision but it takes an army of people." Other than Dr. Thompson, a key member of her "army" was heritage architect William Greer. "I'm still appreciative of all the help he gave me," she says.

While too extensive to list, suffice it to say that every square foot of the home — from the top of the great room's soaring beamed ceiling to the flooded basement — needed attention. Vinyl windows were replaced with replicas of the original wooden casements, the plumbing and electrical systems were updated, layers of paint were scraped away to reveal the original colours (and walls were then painted to match them), and the entire property was relandscaped.

Mrs. Dellandrea even got photographic help from a lady who showed up during Doors Open and revealed that she was Miller Lash's grandson's widow. Copies of family photos she provided now line the walls of a long hallway off the foyer.

Since 2002, the house has been available for weddings, corporate functions and private tours (by appointment), making it part of the larger Scarborough community, which Mrs. Dellandrea thinks is "the better part of the story."

"We did not want to do a historical house that you could just look at and not touch," she says. "We wanted people to be able to enjoy it and gently use it."

Now living in Oxford, England, she remains appalled, however (like my phone caller), about our city's general lack of respect for heritage architecture. "We can't be so provincial. It's a tragedy not for us, [but for] our children and our children's children."

To those of us in agreement, her example would be an excellent one to follow.

For more information, visit http://millerlashhouse.utsc.utoronto.ca/

Dave LeBlanc hosts The Architourist on CFRB Wednesdays during Toronto at Noon and Sunday mornings.