Toronto Condo and Real Estate Blog

Life under vaulted ceilings in a former church

By Sydnia Yu - Globe and Mail

This loft has two bedrooms, three bathrooms, living and dining rooms and an upper-level office and family room.

The main floor - with 10-foot ceilings - features a dining room with built-in cabinetry, an oval staircase and a living room with a gas fireplace and two sets of French doors. They open to a 180-square-foot terrace.

Oak hardwood flooring in the living and dining rooms gives way to marble floors in the kitchen. The latter includes granite countertops, a glass-mosaic backsplash, breakfast bar, wine fridge and upscale appliances. A powder room completes the level.

Upstairs, the master suite has a wall-to-wall closet, glass-block windows and a private bathroom with a whirlpool tub. The second bedroom and three-piece bathroom are also on this level.

A third-floor media/family room has a wood-burning fireplace and 26-foot cathedral ceiling. It is pre-wired for a home theatre system. French doors open to an office with heated limestone floors, a vaulted ceiling, built-in bookcases and heat-blocking windows.

A laundry room is located on the lower level, which provides access to a garage with two parking spots and a locker.

The large third floor requires its own furnace, air-conditioning unit, air cleaner and humidifier, so there are two of each system in the home. The top floor also has an auxiliary AC system.

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In the heart of the Toronto’s Summerhill community, this century-old, former Baptist church on Macpherson Avenue is revered by the handful of residents who live there.

“[The developer] took a large church and converted it into only five units … as opposed to trying to cram in as many one-level condos as possible,” Susan Bandler says of the converted structure near Avenue and Davenport roads. “It gets a ton of interest because it’s so unique.”

There is a unit there for sale right now, and it happens to be the loft mentioned above. “The only reason [the owners are] moving out is because they want to be closer to their daughter, who is having their first grandchild,” she explains.

Ms. Bandler believes this building is one of the most coveted church conversions in Toronto, saying it’s quite unlike anything else she’s seen. She cites its spacious suite sizes, multiple levels of living space, and unique floor plans that preserve the brick building’s grand architectural features.

“[The conversion] maintained the integrity of the original church, and used only the finest of materials,” which is not typical for newly built projects,” she explains.

It’s believed that the congregation of the Century Baptist Church began meeting in members’ homes on nearby Birch Street in 1888. The group was formally organized in 1901 and decided to build a church that could accommodate 500, and a basement that could hold 400 Sunday school attendees.

The structure was built in the early 1900s, and was expanded and renovated over the years until the parishioners left in 1970. It was sold a decade after that to a group practising theosophy.

After a devastating fire in 1986, the building was sold to a developer, who renovated and restored it to its present state. The structure was ideal for a loft conversion project: The walls between units are solid concrete and completely sound proof.

This unit features arched windows and 26-foot vaulted ceilings with exposed roof trusses on the top floor.

“It’s very, very special,” Ms. Bandler says. “You go in and your jaw drops.”

Similar to other suites, it has a three-level plan measuring about 2,600 square feet. Windows face east and west and residents have direct access to the street and garage.

“It’s perfect for people downsizing, for example, from Rosedale or Forest Hill,” Ms. Bandler states. “It still feels like a home, yet you’re in a smaller, more unique space in an amazing location.”

Unlike most conventional homes, however, the third level was dedicated to an office and media/family room rather than sleeping quarters.

“This was the most logical place for a media room because it has a big stone fireplace and there is no bathroom,” Ms. Bandler says.

“With the ceilings being so high, I don’t think that’s conducive for a bedroom.”

The owners prior to the present one hired local design firm Powell and Bonnell to remodel the interiors. Several projects were carried out between 2000 and 2005, one of which was updating the third floor.

Improvements made in the family room included a new fireplace surround, cabinetry, lighting and herringbone-patterned oak hardwood flooring.

An artist hand-painted the walls so that they get gradually darker as they approach the ceiling, an effect meant to de-emphasize the unit’s narrow and vertical dimensions and create a more intimate atmosphere. It took nearly a month to create the effect, which mimics an old European building lit by candles and its fireplace.

On the main floor, the designers remodelled the kitchen around existing appliances; created special wall panelling, cornice mouldings and lighting fixtures for the foyer, living and dining rooms; added a storage unit beneath the circular staircase; and spruced up the powder room.

Recently, the present owner put up glass mosaic backsplashes in the kitchen; installed new shower heads in the second-floor bathrooms and installed an auxiliary air conditioner for the third floor.

Interior designer Linda Schwartz was brought in to, among other things, select furniture and paint colours.

For entertaining outdoors, there is a private space with an interlocking patio, a gas hookup, new landscape lighting in the rock garden and antique brass and glass terrace dividers.

Gargoyles and water fountains provide interesting focal points, and wild pear trees and boxwoods in planters soften the edges.

The grounds surrounding the building are well maintained, complete with heated walkways and driveways and lush greenery, Ms. Bandler says.

The condo board has replaced the roof and put about $350,000 into landscaping,” she adds, noting that the work on the grounds was done by Janet Rosenberg and Associates.

“The second you step off the sidewalk of MacPherson, you can tell it’s a unique, high-end and very well-cared-for condo.”

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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416-388-1960

New Law Requires Real Estate Agents to Collect and Verify ID of Buyers and Sellers

New federal laws and regulations designed to prevent money laundering and anti-terrorist financing went into effect June 23, 2008. Realtors must obtain proof of identity from all parties in any real estate transaction, even if one of the parties is not represented by a real estate agent. Realtors must also track the source of funds received during the course of a real estate transaction, such as the deposit. If the client is a corporation, corporate documentation and the names of the corporation directors must be provided and the corporation must disclose if a third party is involved in the transaction.

“Real estate agents have had legal obligations under the federal government’s push to prevent criminal activity and terrorism since 2001, when Canada’s first comprehensive laws to combat money laundering and terrorist financing were introduced,” says RAHB President, Ann Cosens. “Real estate agents were required to report only suspicious transactions or transactions involving more than $10,000 in cash.”

These new regulations are part of federal legislation (Bill C-25) passed in 2007 that requires a number of industries, including real estate, to do more to help stop money laundering and terrorist financing. The regulations are enforced by the federal agency known as the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, or FINTRAC.

As part of the new rules, Realtors are required to keep all identification and the receipt of funds report on file for at least five years and provide it to FINTRAC. Realtors are also required to complete a report on the receipt of all funds received during a real estate transaction.

Also, under the new FINTRAC regulations, real estate agents dealing with clients they never meet must also verify identification. The broker office involved can do this with a service agreement with an agent or mandatary in the area where the client is located. The agent or mandatary must then meet the client, verify the identification of the client, and provide the information to the broker office handling the real estate transaction.

To comply with the new regulation, real estate agents will need to get more acquainted with their clients.

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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416-388-1960

Industrial graveyard now trendy loft central

By Derek Raymaker - Globe and Mail

It was thought to be beyond saving — a patch of industrial wasteland so grey and exhausted by a century-and-a-half of heavy industry that few could imagine anybody would want to live there by choice.

Up until the late 1980s, King Street West, between Crawford and Dufferin streets, was a mishmash of chemical, textile, food-processing and manufacturing sites; relics of the Victorian-era economy that had gone into a slow and grinding decline.

In their heyday, the industrial titans who owned and managed these companies built themselves mansions just to the west in Parkdale. After they were long gone, their noble brick domiciles were turned into rooming houses for the poor and drug-addicted. There were other thriving streets in the neighbourhood that embraced a rough-hewn working-class aesthetic, but many of those residents, too, would soon drift further west, toward Mimico and Etobicoke.

By the 1970s, most Torontonians didn’t want to go to the King West area, except to see a North American Soccer League game at rickety Lamport Stadium, or to visit the Canadian National Exhibition at summer’s end.

In a way, the real estate boom in the 1980s probably saved King West from permanent desolation. Artists, fashion designers, animators, filmmakers, musicians, photographers and members of the burgeoning computer arts found that the creaky industrial skeletons were cheap and had the space needed to satisfy their muse.

Much of the barren industrial area was rezoned for residential use in 1996. And then came the lofts.

It started with the 46-unit Massey Harris Lofts, a conversion of a factory office building completed in 2002 by Canderel-Stoneridge Equity Group. The success of the Massey Harris Lofts project spawned an upsurge in loft projects in the area, which notably includes the Toy Factory Lofts — Lanterra Developments’ 214-unit factory conversion on Liberty Street that the Greater Toronto Home Builders Association named the best high-rise community of 2005.

Along the way, the area has been rechristened Liberty Village, and has added several townhouse communities as low-rise components, especially on the western edge of the area adjacent to Parkdale. Closer to downtown, a commercial district anchored by a 24-hour Dominion supermarket is growing rapidly along Liberty Street.

As the revitalization of Liberty Village carries on, it continues to be fairly affordable by downtown standards, with many newly launched condos available for less than $200,000, and townhouses available for under $300,000. New developments are being launched regularly, though it appears that loft conversions have given way to new towers and townhouse tracts.

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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416-388-1960