House of the Week: $5.9 million for Greek Revival villa on Roycroft Park
ADDRESS: 75 Glen Edyth Drive
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Casa Loma
AGENT: Elise Kalles, Harvey Kalles Real Estate Ltd.
PRICE: $5.88 million
THE PLACE: Architect Demetri Porphyrios’s columns for the entrance may have been scrapped by his design collaborator, but the Greek Revival style resonates throughout this urban villa. The house is built with an abundance of solid walnut, white oak and marble, but the tone of grandeur is set by the entrance pavilion, with its mahogany doors, skylight, Imperial Porphyry decorative border and statuario marble columns. The airy living room, dining room and kitchen lead to a ravine-encircled Athenian terrace through French doors (there’s a second limestone terrace on the roof).
BRAGGING RIGHTS: The neo-classical architecture was featured in a column by Globe and Mail writer John Bentley Mays, who praised “the superb craftsmanship and unfailing attention to detail.” Porphyrios’s design is an homage to the great Karl Friedrich Schinkel, rendering this Forest Hill abode a bona fide architectural gem. BIGGEST SELLING POINT: The house was designed for a family of five, as indicated by the floor-to-ceiling kitchen cabinets, billiard room, library, workshop and built-in speakers on both floors. POSSIBLE DEAL BREAKER: Buyers looking for lush gardens won’t find them here. The house is less than a year old, so if perennial flower beds are a must for the backyard, next spring will involve some re-landscaping.
BY THE NUMBERS:
• 12,060 square feet • 10 sets of French doors • 5 skylights • 5 bedrooms • 4 bathrooms • 3 fireplaces • 2 storeys • 2-car parking • 2 terraces • 2 fountains • 1 library • 1 wine cellar • 1 workshop • 1 billiard room
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