To renovate or to knock down and rebuild? It's a question that some Torontonians – those who can afford to both buy property and do something with it – are lucky enough to ask. Conventional wisdom says that renovating is at least cheaper than building from scratch, but that doesn't always hold. Modification comes with its own expensive challenges. Rip open the walls, and who knows what you'll find? Lead? Asbestos? Bizarre pipe configurations around which it is difficult to build?
And then there's the aesthetic question. How do you combine old and new in a way that doesn't seem forced? One option is to embrace juxtaposition: add modernist boxes to gabled houses, set sleek glass against weathered brick. Another is to somehow integrate contemporary elements into a single, unified whole. To do that, a designer must think like a theatre director who's mounting an old play for a contemporary audience.
"You have to know the traditional language in order to work with it," Toronto architect Paul Raff says. "Then, if you are going to change something, you do so with confidence and good reason." You hook into what a work once was and imagine what it could be.
For a recent project, a two-year renovation of an Edwardian mansion in Toronto's Annex, Mr. Raff took the integration approach and pulled it off beautifully. Mr. Raff acknowledges that he and the clients – a design-savvy couple, with three kids – considered pulling the building down. But to do so would disturb the character of the Annex, a heritage neighbourhood with its own style: a Queen Anne/Richardsonian Romanesque mash-up that you don't see anywhere else. Plus, Mr. Raff saw things he liked in the building: not just accents – crown mouldings, stained glass – but also a roomy, Edwardian sense of proportion. The staircase, for instance, has generous landings, the kind on which you can install furniture.
Renovating means knowing when to restore and when to reconstruct. Mr. Raff chemically treated the Jatoba wood floors to bring out their nut-brown colour. He also commissioned stained-glass windows and outfitted the stairs with new risers and sculpted balusters. The goal wasn't to imitate every fusty Edwardian flourish but rather to streamline the aesthetic. For example, the exterior columns on the third-storey dormer were fluted and spun. "There was too much visual information," Mr. Raff says. "It was like a wedding cake where the decorator has gone nuts with the icing." He remade the structure with tidy, unadorned pilasters.
The second floor has his-and-hers offices.
Renovating also means taking stock of how people once lived and how they live today. The original entrance of the house had a cramped foyer, its double doors a modest defence against winter draftiness. But contemporary building science has made such precautions obsolete. Mr. Raff resealed and insulated the walls, enabling him to open the foyer to the rest of the home. On the second floor, he created his-and-hers offices: a man cave with wraparound walnut panels on the east side and a sunny west-facing room in what used to be a covered balcony. Both clients work in downtown, consulting-related fields. They need quality work spaces more than they need overhangs in which to drink gin.
On the third floor, Mr. Raff cut open the sloped roofs and cranked them outward, thereby converting a cramped attic into a breezy area with three children's bedrooms. The shapes are as irregular as Tetris blocks – Mr. Raff worked around existing windows and preserved the landing – but the sizes are identical. Each room includes a built-in closet, bed, bench and desk. The millwork enabled the architect to optimize space, since a window seat inevitably takes up less square footage than a standalone piece. "Even with the most wonderful furniture," Mr. Raff says, "you can't possibly get as much space as you need out of your rooms."
For Mr. Raff, customization is a contemporary alternative to old-fashioned notions of luxury. Compared to the Edwardians – or their Victorian forebears, who were even more ostentatious – interior designers today prefer a tidy aesthetic. But while excessively fluted columns may belong to the past, craftsmanship certainly doesn't. Through millwork, Mr. Raff brings sculptured forms and lively textures into a home that still feels functional and clean.
The kitchen floor is made from large slabs of Loire Valley limestone.
This approach is most apparent in the kitchen, which is designed to be the hub of household activity. (Mr. Raff calls it "mission control.") The floors are made from large slabs of Loire Valley limestone, a material that reconciles fin de siècle grandeur (the stone is rich and veined) with modernist simplicity. There are no complicated patterns here: Each piece is a basic rectangle. At 500 square feet, the kitchen is big enough to accommodate the demands of a multigenerational family. Every plate and appliance has its own drawer. There's a breakfast area, a dogfood area, a homework table, an espresso bar with a custom filtration system and a built-in reading bench, its blue upholstery matched to the art hanging above.
An addition clad in Cenia Azul limestone and adorned with planters and railings leads out to the lawn.
Mr. Raff removed a basement staircase that separated the kitchen from the outdoors. In its place, he set an addition – clad in stately Cenia Azul limestone – which steps down to the lawn. The structure is streamlined but with elegant flourishes: setbacks, planters and railings. In the 19th century, yards were nasty places, home to outhouses and trash heaps, which is why many heritage homes are closed off at the back. Mr. Raff acknowledges that his structure is anachronistic, but, tonally, it still complements the site.
Although Mr. Raff's approach is more revisionist than slavishly devotional, he left one area mostly untouched: the second-floor bathroom, with its wraparound Carrara marble and diamond-patterned floors. It's in the middle of the home, where it serves as a kind of historical centrepiece – aesthetic foundation around which everything else is built. This setup evokes those European towns where the oldest structure – usually a castle – sits quietly in the main square, while the surrounding region buzzes with life.