In the dog house
Eric Margolis and Dana Baines share their home with a menagerie of rescued animals
It is the most sumptuous animal rescue shelter in the country. Eric Margolis and Dana Baines share their lovely Forest Hill home with six rescued animals: three dogs and three cats. Margolis is a foreign affairs expert, author and owner/ chairman of Jamieson Vitamins. Baines is an animal activist and project manager at Jamieson. Their rescues include Chloe, a blind kitten. Marco the yorkie-poo was thrown out of a car window in Markham, ergo his name. “Marco still has panic attacks every night,” Baines says. “He is afraid of the dark so I keep the lights on at night and play Mozart.” Robbie, a shih-poo, has diabetes. Katinas (the Lithuanian word for cat) was abandoned on the street and probably abused. Sinbad the black cat is prone to hissing fits. “Sinbad abuses me,” cracks Margolis.
The latest addition is Emma, a Dogue de Bordeaux (a.k.a. French Mastiff ) who was essentially a breeding machine. Baines flew to Montreal, rented a minivan and returned with Emma. “Emma was one of the 530 dogs seized in September from a large puppy mill in Quebec,” recalls Baines, who was a senior project manager in the world of telecommunications before joining Jamieson.
“These dogs were kept at an emergency makeshift shelter located in a government building in Lachute, Que. Emma was emaciated and she is estimated to be about 5 1⁄ years
2 old, so for this breed, she is a senior. She has been either pregnant or giving birth or nursing virtually her entire life.” “Emma is elderly and may have a year or two left. She deserves to have a loving home and we are providing that for her.”
Jamieson furnished 500 beds for the dogs.
“Jamieson started a foundation,” says Margolis. (Eric S. Margolis Family Foundation dedicated to animal causes). “Jamieson has been concerned with animal rights for the last 40 years. We were one of the first companies in North America to establish a policy of opposing animal testing and auditing suppliers so we don’t buy raw materials from companies that do animal testing.
“At Jamieson, we test on our own executives — I’m the chief guinea pig.”
They’ve had the Forest Hill home, built in the 1920s, for a year. They renovated for three months.
“We redid the floors, put in crown moulding, painted and added a new bathroom upstairs, Eric’s ensuite,” says Baines.
The house consists of four levels with a total of 6,250 square feet. The main floor contains a study, salon/ sitting room, reading room/dining room, kitchen and family room.
There are three bedrooms on the second floor. The third floor houses a self-contained, one-bedroom apartment used for guests. It has its own deck, new carpeting and crown moulding. We could easily live there. There is also a fallow apartment downstairs in the basement.
Margolis didn’t have any pets growing up in New York, “except for cockroaches,” he cracks. “But I have always loved animals. In Egypt, I’m yelling at the guy who owns the little donkey. I give him money — ‘go buy some alfalfa for the donkey.’ ”
Margolis’ study/office in the house is painted dark green, with lived-in leather chairs, a marble fireplace (one of four in the house) and custom-made bookcases reminiscent of the English gentlemen’s clubs frequented by P.G. Wodehouse’s characters. It is his favourite room. “I have a passion for fine books,” he confesses. “I run amok. The two chairs in my office belonged to my mother in New York. Upstairs is a picture of my mom in the1940s (she was Nexhmie Zaimi, an American Albanian who was a ringer for Merle Oberon). My mom was an author and journalist who specialized in the Middle East. “My father (Henry M. Margolis) was a businessman.” Following in mom’s footsteps, Margolis is a journalist, contributing editor for 27 years in the Sun newspaper chain covering the Middle East, South Asia and Islam. He writes for The Huffington Post and a slew of foreign papers, appears on TV, is the author of two books and is writing a third. “I’m a late-life film producer,” he adds. “I am doing a documentary series called The Other Side explaining countries that are not well understood. It will probably air in March on CNBC. “I travelled in hot spots for 30 years. I covered wars in evil places. I covered 14 wars in the third world: African bush wars, Middle East, Afghanistan. I was there by myself — no fixers. “Pakistani intelligence put me with local tribesmen. If I got wounded or sick, I’d have to crawl out of there myself. Now places like Afghanistan, Angola, Syria and Iraq are trampled by a whole generation of journalists. Before, it was just me. “It was scary work. I used up 12 of my 9 lives. Do I miss it? YES!” The house is furnished with relics from his foreign correspondent days. Their decorating style, Margolis says, is “classical European plus my adventure travel. It is comfortable.” Interior designers Wally Shaw and Nick Pezzo from Shaw and Pezzo Associates filled in the rest, like the French demilune cabinet in the sitting room/salon downstairs. Margolis picked up the tapestry on the wall in Paris. A Deco-esque black wrought-iron staircase leads to the second floor, site of “the lido deck,” where they sunbathe in the summer. In the hallway resides an18th-century French armoire, also courtesy of Nick and Wally. The centrepiece in the master bedroom is a 56-inch flat-screen TV where they watch the news. The dressing room contains a spectacular military campaign table with an acid-green leather top Margolis purchased in Paris. It compliments the cast-iron naval chair in the corner. “It is very Jules Verne,” he says. “I get good things from Paris.” The cosy family room is complete with fireplace and a huge flatscreen TV. “It is my favourite room,” Baines concedes. “Everybody congregates here — all the animals — and we all watch NBC News. Emma loves the gas fireplace because she has arthritis. She also likes classical music.” The two “poos” are snuggled in their beds near the fire; Emma is sprawled out in front of it. “I’m eighth fiddle here,” Margolis grumbles good-naturedly. “I just pay the bills.”