Where the 19th and 21st centuries meet: building condos in a heritage zone
Drive down any of Toronto's narrow downtown streets these days, and you're likely to come across a heritage restoration. Developers are marrying the old with the new, in sometimes startling ways.
Projects like The Selby on Sherbourne street faithfully restore an entire historic building, in this case a Victorian mansion once occupied by Ernest Hemingway.
Other projects fall into the 'facadism' category, where only the storefronts of historic buildings are retained as an homage, however slight, to the streetscapes of yore. But there's a third kind of heritage project, where a developer has to integrate a brand new building into a heritage conservation zone.
Such is the case with 128 Hazelton, a luxury 21-unit boutique condo being built by Mizrahi Developments in Yorkville, one of 16 Heritage Conservation Districts in Toronto. In its early days, shopkeepers, labourers and more affluent residents were drawn by Yorkville's lower taxes and village atmosphere, forming one of Toronto's original Victorian 'streetcar suburbs.' Because of the diversity of its early residents, its architecture includes virtually every style present in 19th century Toronto. Of almost 200 properties within the district today, more than 65 per cent were built before 1900, and 39 are listed or designated as historic. Of all the streets in the neighbourhood, Hazelton is the best preserved.
But it's not just Yorkville's architectural heritage that's important. The community holds a special place in Toronto's cultural history as well, as home to generations of artists and writers. Albert Franck painted from his house at 90 Hazelton. Mazo de la Roche wrote the first part of Jalna in her upstairs flat at 86 Yorkville. Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven were meeting and working in the Studio Building on Severn Street after 1913, and in 1923, a group of professional women in the arts made a permanent home for the Toronto Heliconian Club in an old board-and-batten church on Hazelton.
With so much built and cultural heritage at stake, a project like 128 Hazelton can be just as challenging as a top-to-bottom restoration, as stakeholder groups line up to scrutinize the design process. "In a conservation zone, there's a very strict process that you have to go through," says Sam Mizrahi. "You have to comply with the heritage requirements, get approval from the councillor and all the stakeholders, the ratepayers association and most importantly, the neighbours."
Mr. Mizrahi is in the fortunate position of knowing Yorkville well, having built 133 Hazelton and 181 Davenport, both of which were well received by locals. "It has to do with respecting the architectural rhythm, having the proportionality of the roofline of the houses on Hazelton, that's very critical. It's the type of materials that you use: the brick, the scale of the windows. All of these factors are part of the architectural landscape and design that gets approved. " Both of Mr. Mizrahi's Yorkville projects sold out in record time, leaving him with a waiting list of people who wanted a midrise boutique building with similar architecture. To get it right for a third time, he enlisted architect and AUDAX principal Gianpiero Pugliese.
Pugliese describes 128 Hazelton as "a modern interpretation of a classical 19th century European project." One could go further and call it a more streamlined, modern version of a Haussmannian building, the kind that line Parisian boulevards and lend a human scale to busy thoroughfares. The curved façade facing Davenport and its classical proportions make it an elegant solution to a corner that deserved a statement building. It's also important to get it right because, as a wistful Mr. Mizrahi says: "This is the last of its kind; there's nothing else that can be built in that quadrant. "
With developers more attuned to the architectural typology of Toronto's historic districts, the future looks brighter for the city's built heritage. "What we want to see more of, are structures that honour and respect the heritage of a site," says Stacey Rodas of Heritage Toronto, the agency tasked with championing Toronto's heritage to its citizens.
Whether 128 Hazelton succeeds in doing its job of respecting its elders, one thing's for certain: the north end of Hazelton will command your attention like never before.
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