129 HAZELTON AVE. , TORONTO
Asking price: $4.5-million
Taxes: N/A
Lot size: 28 by 120 feet
Agent: Linda Chu and Lisa Marie Doorey, Sotheby’s International Realty Canada
The back story
Here’s today’s laugh: At its birth, Yorkville was considered a working-class suburb. First built in the late 19th century, the tightly-packed brick and stucco townhouses along Hazelton Avenue were inhabited by servants and labourers who travelled by foot and horse-drawn streetcar to work in Toronto’s farms, factories and mansions.
The area’s evolution will be familiar to anyone interested in the lives of cities – its proximity to downtown first drew artists (from the Group of Seven through to 1960s hippies), then families, then the well-heeled. As prices rose, original structures were lost to expansions and renovations, and by the mid 20th century, the classic Victorian architecture of the neighbourhood was in danger of being lost.
In the late 1990s, residents and city officials got serious about maintaining a link to Yorkville’s past. Since 2002, Hazelton Avenue has been part of the Yorkville-Hazelton Heritage District. Sixty-five per cent of its homes were built before 1900 and now none of them can be torn down or undergo renovations that alter the Victorian aesthetic. The street looks like a period movie set, all red brick, stucco and barcueboard. But inside, the homes of Hazelton are thoroughly retrofitted with techy conveniences and modern art, as well as deceptively large back gardens sheltered from the city’s buzz.
“Living here, everyone wants to see inside your house – it’s always a surprise when you go in,” says Linda Chu, an agent with Sotheby’s International Realty. “It’s a little tree-lined street ringed by new developments.”
Homes on Hazelton don’t go up for sale very often, but four years ago, the owner of number 129 moved into a nursing home. For decades, she had lived alone in a 150-year-old tar paper house that had been falling apart around her. “It was uninhabitable,” Ms. Chu said.
In 2012, Mizrahi Developments bought the property in order to work on the foundation for a mid-rise condo at 133 Hazelton. Eventually, after community consultations, residents and the developer agreed to a plan that would result in the old structure being demolished and replaced with a new home that hewed to the Hazelton look.
The new detached house will have a Victorian exterior, but an interior with every 21st-century amenity imaginable. Mizrahi has done similar historical-outside/modern-inside projects for a number of private homeowners in neighbourhoods such as Forest Hill.
Although 129 Hazelton must have a classic red brick façade, the interior will be absolutely of-the-minute.
The best feature
“The inside can be anything you want,” Ms. Chu said.
There are already plans for a heated driveway to eliminate winter shovelling and fibre-optic cabling throughout. Aside from being one of only six detached houses on the street, 129 Hazelton presents opportunities that are unavailable to owners hemmed-in by the foundations of their heritage homes. Most residents here are unable to add an elevator, for example, since the shaft can’t be added to older buildings without wrecking the view from the street. That’s just one limitation that 129 doesn’t have.
The new house will also have 10-foot ceilings and pot lights, which can also be an issue when renovating older homes: to gain height on the ground floor, owners of the Victorians have sometimes opted to stagger upper levels, meaning annoying little steps to trip on between hallways and bathrooms. Again, that won’t be an issue here.
To plan the inside of the house, the eventual buyers will have private consultations with designer Brian Gluckstein (or the designer of their choice). Many of Mizrahi’s other projects show traditional design elements such as crown moulding and panelled walls, sumptuous carpets and stately wallpapers. But marble countertops and mirrored bathtubs are also possible. No matter what, it will be luxurious.
“The level of finishing will be higher than the Four Seasons,” Ms. Chu said.
Another benefit to a new house is a chance to eliminate Victorian drafts that aren’t romantic at all. Mizrahi homes are all Energy Star-certified, using high-efficiency heating and cooling appliances, as well as smart, efficient lighting. Miele appliances and Kohler fixtures are a given (unless the buyer wants something else, of course).
Currently, Mizrahi is finishing the low-rise condo project, 133 Hazelton, right beside the house-to-be. That’s slated to be done by December, although lost building time due to the brutally icy winter may push the opening back a month.
Ms. Chu estimates that building the house will take nine months, and the developer is waiting for a buyer to begin, so that the floor plan can be customized exactly to their specifications. The current plan is for four bedrooms and five bathrooms, but really, that’s up to the eventual owners, and their imaginations.