Peek into modern history
House tour in storied Cabbagetown takes you inside Victorian-era cottages and mansions
Don Penfold’s love affair with his Cabbagetown home started years before he bought it, and lived nearby. “I loved where the house was situated — and my neighbours,” he says.
“It’s wonderful that it still looks like a tiny gingerbread house, but it’s really quite large.”
Now, a stunning, three-level garden, backed by poplars and a specially preserved wooden fence, is also something visitors to this home will have a special chance to see. Penfold’s home is the featured residence in this year’s 2017 Cabbagetown Tour of Homes, a self-guided visit through nine homes, from noon-4 p.m., on Sunday, Sept. 17.
“This house was renovated from the bare studs out.” DON PENFOLD CABBAGETOWN RESIDENT
“The house was renovated from the bare studs out,” notes Penfold, 43, of the project that took four months to plan and design, and eight months for the construction. “There are 27 support beams holding it up. The entire expanse is visible.”
The window at the back, measuring 10-by-10 feet and weighing 2,000 pounds, was imported from Europe at a total cost of $15,000. It proved a challenge for the tradesmen who installed it. “My neighbours heard some interesting language,” he says, laughing.
Purchased for $1.2 million in 2015, the Toronto home was built as part of the Wellesley Cottages — workers’ dwellings — in late 1870s and ’80s. They still bear the same historically accurate facades, but what were once 20-by-20 foot residences have now had their interiors transformed. Penfold’s home includes 2,800 square feet of sleek design elements and modern luxuries, from a full gym to a master-bedroom suite with a breathtaking fireplace that features water instead of flames.
White walls throughout set off art that reflects both the owner’s taste and his creativity. An enlarged photo of a downtown skyscraper reflecting the sun looks to be digitally enhanced. “I took that picture, and it’s just as it was,” Penfold says.
Outside Penfold’s cottage home, a cobblestone courtyard is shared by all the neighbours where they gather to enjoy a glass of wine and barbecues.
The courtyard is also a conduit for an informal neighbourhood watch program.
When his neighbours heard beeping one night, they turned out to frantically locate the source; a discarded sump-pump alarm in a garbage bin was revealed as the culprit after a heavy rain had fallen. “We laughed a lot later,” Penfold says.
Every aspect of the home reflects Penfold’s taste and goals. In his modern kitchen, for example, he’s able to indulge in his passion for cooking — whether a family Christmas feast or pasta from scratch on a weeknight. “I consider this my forever home,” he says. “I’ve done everything I ever wanted.”
Cabbagetown, loosely bordered by Sherbourne St. on the west, Wellesley St. to the north, River St. to the east and Gerrard/Carlton Sts. to the south, boasts North America’s biggest, continuous neighbourhood of preserved residences built during the Victorian era (1837-1901).
It was nicknamed, so it’s believed, for its early Irish immigrant settlers who grew cabbages in their front yards.
Today, the neighbourhood forms a fascinating streetscape, with stately mansions and tiny row houses, beautiful brickwork and exterior trims. Visitors on this year’s tour will be able to enjoy it inside and out.
“The Tour started in the late 1970s as an event organized to showcase Cabbagetown’s stock of beautiful but untouched Victorian homes,” explains resident and history lover Gilles Huot, who co-chairs of the Cabbagetown Preservation Association along with David Pretlove.
“They wanted to show the potential of this neighbourhood, which at the time was a poor and neglected area of the city,” Huot says of the pre-gentrification homes, many which served as rooming houses and student housing.
Nine refurbished homes grace this year’s tour, and each reflects the passion of its owners.
“The tour is the Cabbagetown Preservation Association’s main fundraising event and funds are reinvested in its programs,” Hout says. “Neighbourhoods in North America usually change. Homes are torn down and something new is built and we end up with mixed streetscapes, old and mostly new.
“In Cabbagetown, I would say that at least 80 per cent of the homes are the same as they were in the late 1800s.”
The $35 guidebook ticket brochures are available in Cabbagetown at Mi Casa, 238 Carlton St.; Kendall & Co. Interior Design & Décor, 514 Parliament St.; Fairway Variety, 520 Parliament St.; the Epicure Shop, 473 Parliament St., Sheridan-Nurseries, 2827 Yonge St.; Greenery Patch, St. Lawrence Market; Ringe Flowers, 40 King St. W., Scotia Plaza; and Kay & Young’s Flower Market, 136 Avenue Rd.