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- 4 STRATH AVE.
- WHAT: A three-storey Georgian-style house with five bedrooms and three bathrooms built by Home Smith and Co. in Toronto's Kingsway neighbourhood.
- LIVING SPACE: about 3,300 square feet
- LOT SIZE: 50 by 137 feet
- ASKING PRICE: $1,999,000
- TAXES: $12,536 (2007)
- AGENT: Royal LePage Real Estate Services Ltd. (Theodore Babiak)
- AMENITIES: The house, built in 1929, has many modern features, including a heated, tumbled-marble floor in the entryway and a gas fireplace in the living room. But traditional elements — the formal dining room, for instance, original quarter-sawn oak floors on the main level, bay windows, crown mouldings and French doors — have been maintained.
The kitchen has maple cabinets, granite counters, a central island with breakfast bar, a built-in office nook, and European appliances.Four bedrooms are on the second floor, while the third level houses the master bedroom, dressing room and bathroom.The finished lower level includes a fitness room and wine cellar.
The yard, designed by Jim Mosher of Landscape Plus, features a stone patio and gardens.
The wide streets of the Kingsway neighbourhood in Toronto's west end are lined with gracious houses and tall trees. The Georgian-style house at 4 Strath Ave. is situated on a corner from which there are the views to the south and east.
"I remember my first year here — it was all snowy — and there was a little fox running up Kingsway Crescent, the homeowner says of her view from the living room windows. (She asked that her name not be used.)
The area, called Kingsway Park, was developed by Robert Home Smith. Born in Stratford, Ont., he was a well-travelled businessman by the time he founded Home Smith & Co. in the early 20th century.
An anglophile who was influenced by the arts and crafts movement, Mr. Home Smith set out to create a little bit of England when he purchased the land in the late 1920s and early 1930s. At the time, English architects increasingly favoured clean air and green spaces as an antidote to the environments created by the Industrial Revolution.
And a fondness for the "garden suburb" was spreading to North America, according to the 1994 architectural study Kingsway Park: Triumph in Design.
The area's forested location overlooking the Humber River ravine provided a beautiful setting for residential housing, say the study's authors, Elizabeth Ingolfsrud and Alec Keefer of the Toronto Region Architectural Conservancy.
The name Kingsway Park remains descriptive: Hedges are more popular than high fences, and the lack of sidewalks, curbs and street gutters engender a feeling of green, relaxed spaciousness.
The book includes the reminiscences of Mr. Home Smith's chief architect, Robert Hanks, who noted that his boss was — at various times — chairman of the Toronto Harbour Commission, president of the Mexican Northwestern Railway and president of Algoma Steel, among other corporations.
While he had wide-ranging business interests, Mr. Home Smith made his fortune as a pioneer in the development of Northern Ontario mines.
According to the list compiled by Ms. Ingolfsrud and Mr. Keefer, the first owners of 4 Strath were the chemist Neil Lawrence and his wife, Florence.
Kingsway Park houses came with such standard features such as coal furnaces, milk boxes, built-in ironing boards and breakfast rooms, the authors point out. The compact kitchens were intended primarily for food preparation by live-in help, and therefore are no longer very relevant to contemporary lifestyles, the authors note.
Like many of the houses in the neighbourhood, 4 Strath has been expanded and modernized to accommodate a 2008 family.
The formal living room has always had lots of light coming in from the south and east. "I love this room — there are so many windows," the homeowner says.
But at the rear of the house, the owners created an alcove with a large bay window overlooking the backyard to bring more light to rooms facing north.
"I wanted to be feeling like I was sitting in the garden," she says. "It makes the kitchen feel much bigger."
Outside, the stone patio is surrounded by greenery and the vista is of neighbouring trees.
"The streets are wide. When you look out the back, you don't see other houses," says real estate agent Theodore Babiak.
On the second floor, the original master bedroom has a gas fireplace. The current owners have always used the room as a den.
Stairs lead to the third-floor dressing room, which is illuminated by two skylights. It's part of the master suite created by the owners. Besides a large bedroom, there is a private bathroom with a walk-in shower and double sinks.
"It's removed from the kids, so it's nice," the owner says.
The bathroom has a heated marble floor, which the agent calls "one of civilization's best inventions."
The basement recreation room has slate flooring, built-in cabinets, and a home gym, which gets lots of natural light from above-ground windows.
