Photogallery
- 89 BIN-SCARTH RD.
- WHAT: A well-preserved Rosedale house with seven bedrooms on a 2.4-acre ravine lot.
- ASKING PRICE: $6.95-million
- TAXES: $22,848 (2007)
- AGENT: Chestnut Park Real Estate Ltd. (Kelly Lee Fulton and Arthur Parks)
- AMENITIES: The house has lots of original details, including leaded-glass windows, wood trim and a built-in icebox in the pantry.
The foyer features a bay window and oak panelling and stairs. The dining room has a fireplace, beamed ceiling and panelled walls.
Outside, the ravine lot includes lavish gardens. The original garage has been used as a garden house for many years, and a newer structure shelters the cars.
Marie Wilson did not spend her entire life at 89 Bin-Scarth Rd. but she maintained uncommonly strong ties with the house her father bought when she was a little girl. Ms. Wilson, who married twice, held on to the house throughout her life, up until her recent death at the age of 98.
Her father, Albert Wilson, was an insurance broker who bought the Rosedale property in 1922. At that time, the house was 10 years old.
According to a 1977 article in The Globe and Mail, Ms. Wilson was "regarded early as a person" by her doting father, who sent her to Bishop Strachan School and arranged for a mistress from Paris to teach her French.
"I was certainly cherished physically — my father thought I couldn't cross the street alone — yet later he never made a business decision without consulting me," she told the Globe.
As an only child, Ms. Wilson remained close with her father and established deep roots in Rosedale.
Amazingly, the house has remained pretty much unchanged since. Workers have been tearing out creaky old plumbing and chipped bathroom fixtures in recent days. The kitchen appears to date from about 1930.
Recently, some of Ms. Wilson's finer antiques and collectibles were auctioned by Waddington's. Her dresses, suits, gloves and hats — preserved over the decades — were donated to the local theatre community.
By all accounts, Ms. Wilson was a maverick. She graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1935, a time when few women became lawyers. She married another lawyer, Richard Sanders, but always used the name Wilson professionally.
She lived for a time in Forest Hill, but always preferred the Rosedale house on the ravine. After the death of her first husband, she remarried and lived on Bin-Scarth with her second husband. She was an avid golfer at the Rosedale Golf Club, as well as a tennis player and horsewoman.
Ms. Wilson was the first woman appointed a director of the Bank of Nova Scotia who didn't have a previous link with that institution, the executors of her estate say. Other women had been directors, but they had had a connection to the bank.
According to the executors, Ms. Wilson's bank account — which her father opened when she was a child — still has the record as the longest-standing at Scotiabank.
Mr. Wilson founded the firm of A.E. Wilson and Co. Ltd. in 1905 and bequeathed it to her on his death in 1959.
The company was located on Adelaide Street, and Ms. Wilson ran it after her father's death. Nearby, she had a standing reservation at the King Edward Hotel, where she often had lunch.
Ms. Wilson travelled often to London on business and spent her winters at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Fla.
The house as it stands is in need of renovation. The bathrooms and kitchens are outmoded and the principal rooms are dowdy.
"It's a big house. It would need everything," says agent Kelly Lee Fulton of Chestnut Park Real Estate Ltd.
But she points out the home's beautiful perch on the escarpment, and its 2.4-acre lot, large for the centre of the city. The upper floors offer lovely views.
"The gardens are just incredible. She was quite a gardener," Ms. Fulton says.
She notes that any expansion would have to comply with city of Toronto ravine control bylaws and South Rosedale Heritage District rules.
The new owners might want to apply to have the house shifted on the lot, Ms. Fulton adds, in order to build a new house beside it. But such a plan would have to go through an approval process.
Arthur Parks of Chestnut Park believes that many people who grew up in Rosedale would be interested in a house in near-original condition. He calls it a nice piece of land in a special location.
"It's not as if there are a lot of these types of properties left in Rosedale," Ms. Fulton says.
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