Car­olyn Ire­land – Globe and Mail

Just a short walk from Kens­ing­ton Mar­ket, on the edge of Toronto’s Lit­tle Italy, con­struc­tion is about to begin on a new row of eight dwellings in the style of tra­di­tional mews houses.

The town­houses are not the first to carry the imprint of inte­rior design firm Cec­coni Simone Inc.

But they do mark the first time Elaine Cec­coni and Anna Simone have taken a stake as devel­op­ers as well as design­ers. The two have teamed with Brad Netkin of Netkin Archi­tect to form Blurredge Group with an aim of bring­ing con­tem­po­rary infill houses to Toronto’s urban pockets.

The three prin­ci­pals each have an equity stake and the back­ing of a silent investor in the project known as Lip­pin­cott Living.

Cec­coni Simone has been cre­at­ing inte­ri­ors for more than 20 years. Since the mid-1990s, the firm has estab­lished a busy prac­tice in design­ing loft con­ver­sions and condomini­ums. They’ve cre­ated model suites in coun­tries as far away as Dubai.

Two years ago the Blurredge Group found the land at 56 Lip­pin­cott St. Plans were already in place for a row of eight town­houses but the part­ners quickly dis­missed any idea of using that design.

“That would have been a dis­ser­vice to the com­mu­nity,” says Ms. Cecconi.

Mr. Netkin came up with a design that fits pre­cisely into the site. The houses are no more than 14 feet wide. They take advan­tage of the sunny aspect to the south and occlude a three-storey apart­ment build­ing to the north. A com­mon walk­way runs along the mews gardens.

“Row hous­ing is really the urban fab­ric of Toronto,” says Mr. Netkin.

The over­all design is sen­si­tive to the envi­ron­ment and the ele­ments are cutting-edge, the design­ers say.

The mews give pri­vacy to each ter­race and also to the sur­round­ing neigh­bours. A green wall runs along the length.

“It’s a more sen­si­tive way to inte­grate into the neigh­bour­hood,” says Ms. Cecconi.

The project is aimed at buy­ers who are very urban. They are uncom­monly attuned to fash­ion, design and architecture.

“They’re super-sensitive to it – they’re very well read and well trav­elled,” says Ms. Simone.

One might won­der why such styl­ish peo­ple would buy a house that comes with a lay­out, fin­ishes and range of colour palettes selected by the design­ers. If they choose, home buy­ers can even pur­chase fur­ni­ture and decor items cho­sen for the units, right down to the cut­lery on the (optional) custom-stained din­ing table.

The team says cre­ative types can still express their indi­vid­u­al­ity through their furnishings.

“You per­son­al­ize it with your own sen­si­bil­ity,” says Ms. Simone.

Ms. Cec­coni adds that peo­ple are often so focused on career, fam­ily and other pas­sions that they want the ease of mov­ing into a well designed envi­ron­ment with­out hav­ing to think about it.

“They just want to bring a tooth­brush and their clothes,” she says.

The pair have found through their years of expe­ri­ence work­ing with the buy­ers of con­dos and lofts that even the fashion-oriented want guidance.

“Some­times they’re so busy that they just want to sim­plify their lives,” says Ms. Simone.

Mr. Netkin says the design, con­struc­tion and ven­ti­la­tion of the houses will make build­ing and energy con­sump­tion more efficient.

Solar shad­ing devices take advan­tage of the south­ern expo­sure to keep heat in the build­ing in the colder months. Pre­ci­sion pan­els are made in a plant, then erected on site. That mod­u­lar way of build­ing reduces waste and cuts down the con­struc­tion time.

“Once the foun­da­tions are in, the build­ing frame will be up within two weeks,” says Mr. Netkin.

The model, which has been built inside a show­room on the ground floor of the Cec­coni Simone head­quar­ters on Dun­das Street West, allows prospec­tive buy­ers to walk through a unit almost as they will be built.

Buy­ers typ­i­cally have trou­ble look­ing at plans and imag­in­ing a fin­ished house, say the designers.

“They haven’t devel­oped that vocab­u­lary because archi­tec­ture and design is a vocab­u­lary in itself,” says Ms. Cecconi.

For exam­ple, it’s hard for buy­ers to look at plans and per­ceive how the nar­row houses on Lip­pin­cott will still feel gen­er­ous in size because of the 10-foot high ceil­ings on the main floor. In the third-floor mas­ter bed­room, the roof cranks up so that the ceil­ing is 10 feet high at the win­dow end.

“Heights become really impor­tant when spaces are smaller,” says Ms. Simone.

Con­struc­tion is get­ting under way this sum­mer with a move-in date slated for next spring.

Mean­while, the devel­op­ers con­tinue to search for new prop­er­ties. They say the eco­nomic reces­sion has not slowed their plans. They think there is a strong demand for mod­ern, infill houses that suit the indi­vid­ual char­ac­ter of neigh­bour­hoods such as Lit­tle Italy, Lit­tle India and Lit­tle Portugal.

“There’s a crit­i­cal short­age of new hous­ing in down­town Toronto,” says Mr. Netkin. “We’re not here to do mass build­ing. We’re here to cre­ate a niche.”

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