Live-Work-Play: a laneway house in Carleton ­Village with an amazing courtyard centrepiece

By Lucy Dusko and Peter Saltsman | Photographs by Derek Shapton

The People: Peter Tan, 44, and Christine Ho Ping Kong, 47, the husband-and-wife team behind the custom woodworking and design shop ­Studio Junction.

The Place: A courtyard house in Carleton ­Village, near St. Clair and Old Weston Road.

As an architecture student at U of T, Tan wrote his thesis on laneway houses. He and Ho Ping Kong wanted to design their own and found the perfect lot in 2001, behind a Davenport Road house. They stayed in their Junction apartment on the other side of the tracks while they built their new home over six years. The centrepiece is the courtyard, flanked by floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors. They use the space as often as weather allows—for client meetings, art shows, to host parties of up to 300 guests—and sometimes even when weather doesn’t: as their kids, Abbe and Ian, can attest, designers make the best snow forts.