- 67 Madison Ave.
- ASKING PRICE: $1.795-million
- TAXES: $7,914.39 (2007)
- AGENT: Chestnut Park Real Estate Ltd. (Bessie Seyffert)
WHAT: A three-storey Victorian house in Toronto's Annex neighbourhood. The semi-detached has four bedrooms and four bathrooms on a 25-by-126-foot lot.
AMENITIES: The main floor has been opened up to provide more open living areas with ceiling heights of more than 10 feet, hardwood floors, and stained and leaded glass windows. Two staircases lead to the second floor.
The kitchen has been extended to include an eat-in area with doors that open to a perennial garden with a fountain and stone patio. The second-floor master suite has a dressing room and ensuite bathroom. The front bedroom, with wood-burning fireplace and built-in book-shelves, is currently being used as a library.
The loft-like third floor has a fourth bedroom, kitchenette, studio space and bathroom. A walk-out leads to a large deck. The lower level has a recreation room with wet-bar and an additional bedroom and bathroom.
Artist and music producer Teresa Caro Ottens has been drawn to the Annex neighbourhood since she moved to Toronto from central Buenos Aires more than 20 years ago.
The Argentine admires the consistent architecture of the area's many Victorian and Edwardian houses. Artists, intellectuals and students fill the tree-lined streets, she points out, while the shopping and cafés of Yorkville are only a few blocks away.
"Everything is there," she says. "And you have the tranquillity of a residential area."
Ms. Caro Ottens also likes the mix of the neighbourhood's professors and other long-established denizens with the constant flow of students who come and go from nearby University of Toronto.
"You have the grandeur along with the energy and dynamism," she says.
Architect Catherine Nasmith, president of the Architectural Conservancy of Toronto, has called Madison Avenue one of Toronto's most admired streets. It has been recognized as a street of heritage importance since the mid-1970s when Toronto first began to undertake heritage protection, she notes.
Ms. Caro Ottens' semi-detached Victorian on Madison had been badly neglected when she moved in 1990 and undertook a "back-to-the-bricks" renovation. At one time the house was carved into six apartments. Then an economics professor moved in and, finding the large house had more space than he needed, boarded up the third floor and the basement.
Ms. Caro Ottens reopened the closed-off rooms and restored the house for single-family living.
Along the way, she kept the original fireplaces — including the original ceramic tiles surrounding the one in the living room — and high baseboards. She also kept the layout of the main floor but opened up doorways to create a better flow between rooms.
She also added a powder room and updated the kitchen. "We put all of the modern gimmicks into it."
Real estate agent Bessie Seyffert of Chestnut Park Real Estate Ltd. says the front living room was most likely used as a parlour for receiving guests in Victorian times, while a second smaller sitting room would have been a private retreat for the family.
Ms. Caro Ottens' research shows that one of the building's earliest residents was William Henry Fraser, who was appointed a lecturer in Italian and Spanish at the University of Toronto in 1887. In 1901 he became a full professor. His daughter, Frieda Helen Fraser, was born in 1899 and educated at home at 67 Madison. She went on to Havergal College, University College and then medical school. In the summer of 1925, she moved to New York City where she took her internship at the new York Infirmary for Women and Children.
Dr. Fraser advanced through the medical world, specializing as a lecturer in hygiene and preventive medicine, and as a researcher for Connaught Laboratories. Eventually she was appointed a professor of microbiology at University of Toronto. Ms. Caro Ottens likes to say that the illustrious former resident has imbued the house with a positive ambience.
When she reworked the flow of her home, Ms. Caro Ottens opened up the doorway between the two living rooms, but the distinct areas remain.
The fireplace surround in the less-formal sitting room is her favourite, she says, because of the handiwork in the elaborately carved woodwork. "It's like a piece of furniture."
Beyond the sitting areas, a formal dining room retains the original plaster ceiling medallion and light fixture.
Replacing old details would have been less expensive than restoring them, says Ms. Caro Ottens. "It's so much more beautiful to preserve," she says. "I love the European flavour of the house."
The house was extended at the rear by previous owners and the addition contains a breakfast nook with skylight. Doors lead to a terrace at the back and stone patio. "We enjoy our barbecues out here," Ms. Caro Ottens says.
Upstairs, the library at the front of the house also has a wood-burning fireplace and built-in bookshelves. West-facing windows provide lots of light.
A bathroom on the second floor has a claw-foot tub, a bidet, pedestal sink and separate shower.
"The ceiling heights are great even on the second floor," notes Ms. Seyffert.
A master bedroom at the rear has lots of cupboards in the second-floor space of the addition ("You don't find this in the older homes," says Ms. Seyffert). The ensuite master bath has marble countertops and accents in deep emerald green.
On the third floor, Ms. Caro Ottens has created a studio with a separate bedroom, bathroom and kitchenette. A door opens to a tree-top terrace.
"The deck is magnificent," says Ms. Seyffert.
The finished basement, meanwhile, has a separate entrance. At one time the basement was set up as an apartment, so it could be used that way again or as a nanny suite, the agent points out.
Ms. Caro Ottens, who works in the music industry, says the house is ideal for entertaining. "I've had a whole bunch of bands jamming here."
She says Madison Avenue does not get a lot of traffic because the street runs one-way south of Bernard Avenue. "It's a beautiful niche."
She also points out that the street marks the transition between the Annex on the east side of Spadina Avenue, and the somewhat less gentrified area to the west.
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