Maple-Ash House

Intro
This three story residential home at the apex of Toronto’s urban core merges style, detail, and location. Modern architectural features weave Scandinavian and Japanese design aesthetics throughout the space designed for living, working, and hosting. Nestled on a residential strip at one of the most desirable locations in Toronto — at your fingertips are King West, Queen West, and the Waterfront.

Pre-dating the Civil War era, the land deed dates back to 1840. Centrally placed with reason, the city was built around this home and its neighbouring lots. Just north of historic Fort York, the building served as an officer’s house during its early stages and still maintains ‘Military Lot Reserve’ on all city paperwork.

Over the decades, the three bedroom, three bathroom unit has seen many upgrades and renovations. The refined finishes have transformed it into a bright, flexible, open, innovative, and inspirational environment like no other in the city. This is not your cookie cutter suburban home.

The Basics
‘See holistic and applying specific’ is a phrase the previous architect used when defining this detail-oriented space. This methodology of thinking applied to the house creates a sense of continuity throughout every level and element within the process. A core palette of modern, timeless substrates – concrete, light ash, natural stone, raw steel, glass partitions, flat black — create unity throughout the home.

Inspiration is pulled from the past. Classic Scandinavian and Japanese influences are complimented with labour intensive reclaimed / raw materials. This approach gives each visitor to the home room to play with their individual experience and design forward solutions in every single touchpoint.

Entrance
Guests are led into the home through ascending, modular concrete forms. As if the heavy concrete sidewalk rises out of the earth, sculpted forms rise into steps. Relief boxes house greenery and ground covering plants. Flat concrete panels applied to elevated layers of fascia add depth and extend to the vertical plane. An L shaped divider spans the property entrance and elevates the first story. Loosely separating the house from the neighbouring property are treated, upcycled fir paneling within a steel frame. The custom front door hosts a built-in vertical sidelight. The extra tall entrance mirrors the vertical lines on the two front-facing, stacked windows.

Living Room
On entrance, a bright and open floor plan warmly welcomes visitors on the first floor with expansive views. Scandinavian style, custom procured, 9 inch wide ash floorboards span the length of the entire level. Lengths varying up to 12 feet long lead the viewer beyond the interior building envelope and into the backyard — optically extending the space and sight-lines while bringing the outside in. The living room is highlighted with a built-in entertainment centre and direct vent, radiant heat gas fireplace. Matchbook, walnut cabinets hide clutter and create depth with the push and pull of materials and shadows. This floor-to-ceiling wall treatment is grounded in a concrete hearth mantle..

Kitchen
As the living room extends into the house, a dining space is defined with 3 key elements: (1) two custom made, modular tables constructed from a reclaimed naturally broken butcher’s block, (2) a softly glowing LZF lamp, (3) and a large iceberg print from Canadian landscape photographer Curtis Jones. Built in cabinets meet either side of the kitchen peninsula. Italian soft-close cabinetry is capped with edgeless, soft grey concrete Ceasarstone. Freestanding and built-in appliances dot the exterior and interior working wall, while laundry and utilities are covered with custom-welded, double wide flat black steel doors. With no uppers on the north side, an 8′ picture wide window helps expand the galley kitchen and offer vistas to the backyard, ground cover ivy, and century old maple tree. A perfect place to flip on the italian tap and undermount sink in your daily meal prep.

Modular concrete steps lead to the rear entrance and take on shapes familiar to the exterior front entrance. Elevating out of the ground, as if sculpted, the concrete steps plateau before meeting the corner opening, double sliding doors. This plane extends into the beautifully designed backyard and becomes an extension of the kitchen — both functionally and visually.

Powder Room
Tucked away under the stairs is a convenient two piece rest room. Large Carrara marble stone waterfalls down the back wall of the space, spans the floor and meets the custom fit under-sink cabinet. Upon the medium tone vanity rests a custom designed and fabricated Corian sink with built-in soap ledge. The angular shape adds personality and function to the space. Above the chrome Italian faucet sits an edge-to-edge mirror. Spanning the narrowed space the glass reaches up to the ceiling, reflecting the water droplet style hanging lights.

2nd Floor
The primary feature of the first floor is arguably the partially exposed floating staircase. Sitting on the cold-rolled steel mono-stringer rests the thick, 5×8″ solid wood ash treads. A year in planning and over 8 months air drying, before the treads were finished milled then installed. Partially floating and partially grounded, the steps transcend out of the main floor and into the second floor space. Here, a floor-to-ceiling glass curtain wall helps keep the second floor hallway bright and unrestricted by opaque structures. Light floods in through the space in the morning and evening, and through the third floor skylight above. In the hallway, an Icelandic mountain top print is rotated 90 degrees mirroring the stepping pattern of the adjacent, exposed structure of the first and second floor staircases. The custom cut, wide white ash floorboards mimic the main floor and stretch the length of the house meeting and passing custom-built doors on each end of the hallway.

Studio
Large, east-facing windows and the walk out deck help fill the studio space with light during the morning and throughout the day. At night, the 14′ cathedral ceiling becomes a focal point with its softly up-lit, suspended tray ceiling. A skylight centred in the architectural ceiling creates a sense of symmetry and a hidden focal point. Views of blue skies and the canopy of the century old maple tree make this the most inspirational place in the house.

Along the exterior wall, aligned to the tray ceiling, a long picture window window frames the maple trees split and the cityscape beyond. On the opposing 14′ internal wall sits the home's largest art, a 5′x8′ mixed media painting of indigenous warrior Tecumseth — a tribute to the history and street name of the home. 180 year old reclaimed wood from the original house structure has been salvaged and now becomes a barn door to the studio. Beyond the European-style tilt-and-turn door (and glass panel wall) is the second floor walk out deck. In the morning, a perfect morning perch to share your coffee with the local birds. On the weekends, a performance platform for your favourite DJ to play at your next house party.

Spare Bedroom
To help amplify afternoon light into the centre of the home, a moving wall was fabricated in place of a traditional doorway. When open, the central artery of the home has a brighter, more spacious feel. When guests arrive, the wall can be closed for privacy, revealing a built in closet and personal workstation. Here, a desktop created out of the home’s upcycled timber frames adds character and warmth. Adjacent from the waterfall-like, ash-skinned moving wall is a floor-to-ceiling curtain wall. Three jellyfish prints by underwater photographer and marine biologist Alexander Semenov line the interior wall. The clean, northern wall omits passive light all day through an elongated picture frame window.

Spare Bedroom
The main bath offers a spa like reprieve from the everyday hustle of the urban surroundings. Niagara escarpment limestone powder the floor, tub surround, privacy-wall, and floor to ceiling back wall. A glass partition sits on top of the privacy wall allowing light to omit the space and gives glimpses into the rain shower overhead. In floor heating warm the feet in front of the custom Corian counter / sink dotted with Italian his and hers taps. A back lit mirror adds depth and helps accent the overhead pot lights.

3rd Floor Main Bedroom
The third floor master bedroom utilizes the centre point of the roofline to create two different zones. Symmetrical partitions of frosted glass on the right, and brick-cut ash paneling on the left help mask the open shelving and two-piece bath behind each. Vanity down-lights are meticulously hidden in the structure of the ceiling and out of view. A modular, custom-built storage unit is easily moved based on the user’s personal preference and occupancy. Panoramic and tilt-and-turn windows hug the northeast corner and open to the crown of the majestic maple tree centring the home. The remote-controlled skylight floods light directly over the open staircase and into the centre of the home, creating a bright and whimsical energy throughout.

Exterior
Modular concrete entrance steps flatten out and slope up the northern elevation of the house to form the 1+ driveway. The grey surface then continuously wraps around all three sides of the owned property and transitions vertically into a concrete planter box at the back of the house. This transition creates unity and extends the space in both filled and open partitions. Matching the entrance’s cut out and relief approach, strategically-placed spaces are left open from concrete and filled with warm, green-scaping and black cedar wood chips.

Through the corner opening, polycarbonate doors, fun is added to the space with oversized numbers printed on a frosted yellow substrate. Through a path, visitors are lead into the backyard and meet the cornerstone of the outdoor space — a hundred year old maple tree. Ideally located, the tree offers shade, life, and biophiia inside and outside the home, and neighbouring residents.

Grounding the outdoor space is a two ton mica quartzite rock. Imported from northern Quebec accessible only during freeze-over in winter months, this piece of art is one of nature's best. Natural elements, including and green ivy covering, infuse nature at scale to the urban location like no other. Black tone of wood chips on the ground covering shift vertically to match the black perforated steel on the fence and the background of the backlit jellyfish art.

75 year old fir from the St. Lawrence Seaway is used to warp around the property exterior. The reclaimed material skins the fence, three-sided motorcycle covering, and the outdoor built-in cooking area. Centering two storage cabinets is a gas barbecue. 10″ thick, unfinished fir beams span the width of the property acting as architectural features, structural support for fence paneling, and the second story deck. Strung between the two overhead beams, an 8′ square catamaran hammock lets you dream away the weekends in this dreamy home.