Design and function in a vintage home
Innovative marketer, health-care manager make Summerhill home ‘accessibly contemporary’
Ron Tite is an ad man but not a
Mad Man. He is no Don Draper. In the attic office of his charming Summerhill home hangs the framed mission statement “WORK HARD & BE NICE TO PEOPLE.”
Tite is an award-winning advertising writer; CEO of marketing agency Church + State (formerly The Tite Group); publisher of the satirical book This Is That Travel Guide to Canada; and co-author of the book Everyone’s an Artist (or at Least They
Should Be). Proclaimed one of the “Top10 Creative Canadians” by Marketing magazine, he has been creative director for a myriad of top brands from Air France to Microsoft and Volvo.
Step into his living room and try to not stare at the enlarged, three-panel photo of a submerged man in a collared white shirt and snorkel mask staring back. It looks like irreverent fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi under water.
Tite and his wife Christy, manager of Ambulatory Mental Health & Addictions Service at St. Michael’s Hospital saw it in Artifacts Emporium on Yonge St., and were smitten.
“Though we don’t agree on art,” confesses Tite, perched on a chair with 12-year-old bulldog, Rupert, at his feet. There’s also Maggie, a 10-year-old Yorkiepoo. She had the Yorkie; he had the bulldog. “We Brady Bunch
ed them,” he cracks. Maggie is out for a stroll with Christy and the couple’s 3month-old son, Max. The pair met as seatmates on a Porter flight from Newark, N.J., to Toronto. Tite travels extensively as a speaker on innovation, branding and content marketing.
Their Victorian home was built in 1880 and covers about 1,700 square feet on four storeys, with three bedrooms including a bedroom/office on the fourth floor, formerly the attic. Up there in Tite’s office hangs a showstopper of a poster: Cap’n Crunch Flashback: 28 Years of
Torture, in support of Tite’s standup days at Tim Sims Playhouse at Second City. “I’ve been a comedian for 20 years,” he explains.
The main floor is open-concept, with a fully-mirrored wall in the dining room, courtesy of the previous owner. They have been here for six years and kept the renovations to a minimum. “We were respectful of the heritage of the Victorian house.”
They redid the floors, installed new lights, converted and painted the fireplace, overhauled the bathroom and replaced kitchen countertops with white granite. The kitchen is modern, in a grey-and-white palette, including grey subway tiles.
The front doors, replete with stained glass, were meticulously refurbished by Sixpenny, a Toronto-based architectural firm.
Tite describes the decor as “accessibly contemporary.”
Tite was born in Montreal and raised in Oshawa. Both he and his wife earned phys-ed degrees at university yet neither work in physical education field.
“My epiphany was John Irving’s book The Imaginary Girl
friend, an autobiography,” he recalls. “He was a wrestler in college — a jock — and he discovered writing. He told his coach he had to see his girlfriend, which was his writing, ergo imaginary. It was my ‘Eureka!’ moment: You could be whatever you want. So, I started working developing websites at Queen’s School of Business in Kingston.”
Afterwards he worked for a company that built websites before moving into a position as writer in the creative department of a major international advertising agency. He quit to start his own business: himself with one desk, new clients and six years later, a staff of 15.
At home, Tite tends to favour the living room, where they watch Netflix. “I also love the visuals of the white staircase,” he says. “We mount it cautiously because it is impossibly narrow and steep as per the 1800s.”
At the top of the stairs, the black-and-white graphic carpet in the nursery is actually rubber tiles. A cartoon portrait of the family dogs is by Hamilton’s Chris Farias.
Downstairs, Rupert the dog watches as a robot vacuum robot glides around the living room floors. Rupert is totally unfazed.