A trellis made of ipe was designed to shade the interior from high summer sun; it’s one of several passive climate-control strategies employed by Dubbeldam. Along with a radiant heating system, they make the house extremely energy-efficient.
Upstairs, an operable skylight lets hot air vent straight out of the house, and also brings light in to the adjacent bathroom—through a frosted glass wall—and the downstairs.
The hearth—lined with panels of industrial felt by artist Kathryn Walter of FELT Studio—is Patel’s favourite part of the house. "It's modelled after 1950s and 1960s modernism, when people had stone walls that looked like this," he says. "But it has a tactile quality as well. People touch it—and then they want to lean their heads against it."
A custom unit of sapele wood holds three masks that evoke Patel's East African heritage. Dubbeldam designed the built-in dining table out of solid sapele. The backsplash and counter are made of gray St. Marks limestone.
Dubbeldam opened up the layout completely—long linear elements draw your eyes through the house to the backyard, and subtle details guide your eye there. One type of porcelain tiles, intended for outdoor use, stretches from the kitchen to the yard. "The backyard is small," she says, "but when you connect the house and the yard visually, they both seem so much larger."
Toronto doctor Yash Patel's home is an 1880 house on a quiet block in The Annex, a 19th-century downtown district. "This is a very pedestrian-friendly neighbourhood, and that’s important to me," he says. A modern garden by architect Heather Dubbeldam hints at what's inside.
Though Patel lives alone, he loves to entertain. In summer months, friends can gather at the outdoor table for some barbecue and have drinks on the sofa inside. Plantings of lavender, fragrant grasses, and a Japanese maple add colour in the carefully composed garden, which has a floor of tile and painted cedar slats.
The plywood stair guards give a sense of stability and transition to this brightened tudor home in Toronto.
A dim Toronto Tudor gets an airy new look. The home’s second-story hallway, which serves as an open office and library, was suffering from a severe lack of light. Lifting up one side of the old pitched roof made room for a linear skylight, which faces south to allow in as many rays as possible, and the modification transformed the top floor into a loftlike double-height space. Inexpensive detailing then added texture and scale: Simple plywood panels attached to cold-rolled-steel frames serve as guards along the stairs.
A grille of walnut slats, designed by Syme and made by the local millworkers MCM, delineates the edge of a new stair with open treads made of hot-rolled steel. Tall Bulthaup cabinets mark the edge of the dining area; Evans, a mechanical engineer, had them custom-made to conceal heating ducts that vent almost invisibly through the top edge.
Darkshadow House Floor Plan
A Porch
B Dining Room
C Kitchen
D Living Room
E Powder Room
F Study
G Bathroom
H Bedroom
I Dressing Room
J Terrace
In the rear of the house, a new addition extends the living space and adds a roof terrace off the second-floor master bedroom. A garden is accessible through a wall of sliding glass doors with Sapele mahogany frames, set back to control solar gain.
The transformed facade features dark gray stained-masonry.
A slight gap between the existing house and the new addition allows for a skylight and a masonry chimney with a wood-burning fireplace.
On the ground floor, freestanding cabinetry with a gloss lacquer finish by Bulthaup separates the entryway from the kitchen and dining area.
The kitchen features cabinets from Bulthaup’s B3 line and a hearth made of ironspot brick. Evans and his wife, Susan Wilson, bought the wall clock at Habitat in London.
The standing shower is set off by etched-glass panels supported by stainless-steel hardware. There is no threshold; instead, the tile within the shower zone slopes down very slightly to a floor trough with a custom stainless-steel grille. Along the wall, a Corian shelf—“the longest soap dish in the world,” resident Don Evans jokes—runs the length of the space.
The bathtub faces a Spanish-cedar-framed window overlooking the back deck. Once the outside plants have grown up enough to provide privacy, the adhesive film on the window will be removed.
Architect Paul Syme designed custom storage units with dark-stained walnut fronts that provide a place for everything in his clients’ Toronto bathroom. The wall-to-wall mirror and the Corian counter are custom, and the faucets are by Vola.
Windows in the roof monitor let in natural light and ventilation.