This high-performance kitchen brings together
luxurious design with technological innovation
Every morning, architect and designer Dee Dee Taylor Eustace walks into her kitchen and makes a cup of coffee. It’s a common ritual many of us share, but since completing the ambitious renovation of her mid-town Toronto home, this daily act has become about much more than a caffeine fix.
“When I walk in here, I feel happy,” Eustace says. “Everything is beautifully lit and exactly where it needs to be. There are special vintage pieces and art, each with a story. Every day, I think about what I’ve created and the positive feelings it evokes for me.”
Not long ago, standing in the same spot stirred very different emotions. When Eustace, founder of Taylor Hannah Architect, purchased the Edwardian-era home with two business partners in 2017, it had functioned as a university fraternity house for nearly six decades. Any stately mouldings or original architectural details worth salvaging were sadly long gone. But Eustace understood the value – and rarity – of the home’s sturdy triple masonry structure, generous size and prime location.
She decided to split the house into three luxury units, turning the main floor into her own three-bedroom home, which she shares with her daughter, Rachael Taylor Hannah, founder of THCuration, an online marketplace for home goods.
Gutting the house’s interior gifted Eustace with a blank canvas for designing every aspect of her home, which she characterizes as “luxury traditional.” The kitchen’s tight footprint left little room for error, so she began with rigorous measuring and a detailed list of appliances. “You cannot plan a kitchen without knowing the measurements of your appliances,” says Eustace. “Gaggenau’s designs are iconic, like a Chanel broach, and are a great starting point.”
A busy professional, Eustace looked to high-performance technologies to make the most of her time in the kitchen, choosing Gaggenau’s 30-inch full-surface induction cooktop with stainless steel frame as her main cooking surface. Designed without designated heat zones, it allows for up to six pans to be placed anywhere on the surface, granting greater flexibility and creativity. “I wanted state of the art and Gaggenau delivers that,” says Eustace. To keep her options open, Eustace paired her cooktop with a single gas burner, also from Gaggenau’s 400 series.
Together with the 400 series 30-inch single wall oven, the cooktops outfitted the dedicated cooking island, one of two islands that float in the centre of the streamlined kitchen (the second is for prepping and washing up, and houses two Gaggenau 400 series dishwashers). Each island is clad with a matte granite top, bronze siding and lacquered taupe cabinets and drawers – materials that make them look more like custom furniture than kitchen fixtures.
Above the cooking island, Gaggenau’s 48-inch stainless steel 400 series Island Hood matches the bold design while clearing away vapours and odours for optimal air quality.
“I like the playfulness of someone standing in the middle of the two islands,” says Eustace. “I designed the kitchen like a stage set; when it’s not in use, it looks perfect. We walk past this kitchen countless times a day, so I wanted the ability to tuck everything out of sight.”
Simple, white perimeter cabinets allow the two islands to stay in the spotlight, but they are just as hard working. Hidden behind the streamlined rows of touch-latch doors are a 36-inch 400 series panelled fridge column and an 18-inch series panelled freezer column (both Gaggenau), an ample food pantry, storage for Eustace’s sizeable collection of tableware, and her morning coffee station.
The only elements allowed to interrupt the quiet rhythm of the unadorned cabinets was a 400 series Steam Convection Oven neatly stacked with a 400 series built-in compact oven with microwave function, both 24-inches wide. A little further along, a 24-inch Wine Cooler boasts three independent climate zones to keep bottles at perfect serving temperatures. Fitted with a glass door, the wine cooler has five different lighting scenarios, making it easy to find a setting that suits any occasion.
“Lighting sets the mood,” says Eustace. “Throughout the kitchen, there’s LED strip lighting for the cabinets, individual spotlights and LED strips on the ceiling, and lights in the ventilation hood. Whether I’m illuminating the room or a surface, every light can be precisely controlled.”
Eustace estimates she has designed close to 300 kitchens, ranging from traditional and colourful to streamlined and contemporary. This kitchen ranks among her favourites, she says, because it draws you back to discover more: “It’s beautiful, it’s functional and it disappears.”
Just as she planned it.