The view from 50 storeys up

Carolyn Ireland – Globe and Mail

183 Wellington Street West, Suite 5002 – $2.4999-million

The Building

During the Toronto International Film Festival, fans lined the barricades outside the Ritz-Carlton, hoping to catch sight of George Clooney and Ryan Gosling, among other marquee names. A better strategy for meeting the stars might have been to purchase a suite at the Residences at the Ritz-Carlton, then spend a lot of time hanging out at the bar.

The 267 guest rooms of the luxury hotel make up one component of the 53-storey tower while the 156 residential suites take up the rest. Designed by New York-based Kohn Pedersen Fox, the building has a dramatic glass-enclosed podium facing Wellington Street.

The residents arrive to the same porte-cochere as the hotel guests and share access to the hotel’s amenities and five-star pampering. But the residences have a separate lobby – all the better for avoiding the paparazzi.

From the main-floor lobby, condo dwellers take the elevator to a sky lobby on the 21st floor. The common spaces include meeting rooms, a screening room, billiard room and a guest suite.

The individual suites don’t have balconies but a furnished outdoor roof terrace with an adjacent wet bar is available to all.

“I was here the other night and the sun was setting,” says real estate agent Carl Langschmidt of Royal LePage Your Community Realty Inc. “It was quite pleasant.”

The perks include ordering from room service or – for a night out – a short hop to the farm-to-table dining at TOCA. The residences have a small gym with a close-up view of the CBC Broadcasting Centre, but condo dwellers can also breeze past the velvet ropes and bowler-hatted doormen to use a spa, salon, pool and fitness centre at the hotel.

The building’s location provides quick access to TIFF headquarters, the Bay Street financial district, the Rogers Centre and Roy Thomson Hall.

Mr. Langschmidt says the residences appeal to downsizing empty nesters moving out of large houses in Rosedale and other posh neighbourhoods. Many such buyers flee to warmer temperatures in the winter months and would rather lock up a condo than an unattended house.

The Suite

Mr. Langschmidt points out that the elevators from the sky lobby provides direct access, James Bond-style, to the front door of the suites.

Suite 5002 is a sub-penthouse with a city view from the 50th floor.

“My client picked the north view intentionally,” Mr. Langschmidt said. “With the south view, at night the lake is black,” he says of the vista over Lake Ontario.

The owner, Paul Flanagan of KickStart Marketing and Design Inc., has chosen a modern style and finishes for the 2,525-square-foot suite.

The living space includes a large, combined living room and dining room. A separate kitchen has a breakfast area, island, built-in wall ovens and under-the-counter wine fridge. The split plan separates the two bedrooms so that the master, with ensuite bath and walk-in closet, has more seclusion. There is also a library that can be used as a third bedroom.

A service entrance lets caterers enter the kitchen without intruding on the soirée in the living area.

The Best Feature

The height, combined with floor-to-ceiling windows, makes for a very bright and quiet dwelling.

“In the afternoon, the sun’s just pouring into the unit,” Mr. Langschmidt says. “You have spectacular sunsets in the west.”

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

Laurin & Natalie Jeffrey are Toronto Realtors with Century 21 Regal Realty.
They did not write these articles, they just reproduce them here for people
who are interested in Toronto real estate. They do not work for any builders.
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