A stable of secrets in the heart of the Annex

In a city as big as Toronto, there are bound to be many secret places. Some of them, too, are bound to be places people call home.

Once in a while, we're allowed a peek inside, as was the case a few days ago when I visited Connie and Leon's "upside-down house" in the Annex. (Surnames have been withheld at their request.)

It's not really upside-down, but it really is a secret: You can't see the house from the street because it was never meant to be a house. Legend has it that it started life as a stable for Daiter's Creamery, then, and perhaps not in this order, it was a button factory and a community theatre. At some point in the 1970s or '80s, and with a great deal of thought, it was converted into a home.

Four years ago, when Connie was in Hong Kong on business and Leon was living outside the city, they bought it sight unseen. After living in Victoria, Winnipeg, and then in a converted stagecoach hotel outside of Guelph, the couple decided to move to Toronto. They'd asked friends to take a look at anything of interest their real estate agent found, hoping for a house in the Annex, an area they'd lived in briefly in the 1980s.

" 'Try to imagine a combination of a New York loft and a French country house right in the middle of the Annex,' " is how Connie remembers her friend describing the place during a long-distance telephone call.

"Our friends said, 'really, there isn't anything else like it,' and that it just would suit us. And it did."

Between two typical bay-n-gable houses is a narrow aperture that leads to a nondescript gate. Through it, a secret courtyard unfolds to meet up with a long, squat, white brick structure with a gently pitched, three dormered roof, under which are two "front" doors at opposite ends of the converted stable.

On the ground floor are the couple's individual studies, the master bedroom with en suite bathroom and the guest bedroom, all with radiant-heated concrete floors. At opposite ends are staircases that climb up to the kitchen, dining and living areas. In other words, the house is upside-down since the rooms that are typically on top - the private ones - are on the bottom.

Remnants of the home's former lives reveal themselves as I walk through. Standing beside the twisty staircase in Connie's study and looking past the rust-orange wall into the master bedroom, I'm treated to a view of the large stable doors that open directly on to the alley. In Leon's book-lined study are operational clerestory casement windows with industrial wire-mesh inserts and, upstairs, there is the secret delight of the little room that's painted apple green. With the touch of a button, a metal shutter yawns open to drink in fresh air, sunlight and birdsong. This portal, explains Connie, must have been where hay was brought in, and a former owner was wise enough to make it a feature rather than installing a conventional window.

In fact, there was so much wisdom put into how to convert this two-storey, 4,000-square-foot building into a residence that, while the couple has sunk considerable money into maintenance, they haven't done much cosmetically. While Leon's study and the guestroom were created "from scratch," and the "crummy doorknobs" were all replaced, the upper level remains very much as they found it. It is a high-ceilinged, gallery-like space containing a wonderful brick fireplace with a tapering chimney and arched fire doors, multiple skylights, a long galley kitchen and that glorious apple green paint.

"When we bought this house it was this green, and friends were sort of 50-50: 'Don't you dare touch that green' and 'of course, you're going to get rid of that,' " laughs Connie.

Since she's an educator, writer and editor and he's the author of many fine books, the home works equally well for living lives that can be at times quiet and solitary and at others very social.

"It's a great party house because of all the nooks and the space," she says.

It turns out that the house is also a great fit with Connie's dreamscape. While she has had physical experiences with real estate over the years - like when she designed a house the couple still owns in Mexico - she has had metaphysical experiences also, such as a recurring "real estate dream" she had when she was younger. In it, she found herself exploring a house with many wonderful secrets.

"At the beginning, it's very modest and hidden [but]as you open doors and turn corners, suddenly there's a baronial library and a roaring fire or you open a closet and the sea is through it, or you go through a thing and suddenly there's a wonderful courtyard," she recalls.

"The house expands into wonderful spaces, and sometimes it's old stuff and sometimes it's very contemporary stuff, but the signal feature of these dreams is that you don't expect it."

Sounds a lot like a place I know in the Annex. But let's keep it our little secret.

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