House of the Week: $4.9 million for a hidden laneway mansion near Yonge and Eglinton

Address: 7 Sherwood Lane
Neighbourhood: Mount Pleasant
Agent: James Martin Molloy, Chestnut Park Real Estate Limited, Brokerage
Price: $4,895,000

The place: An unusual home hidden in a laneway near Yonge and Eglinton.

The history: This place was a dry cleaning warehouse until the late 1980s, when Toronto designer and builder Joe Brennan converted it into a home. (He went on to work with tony clientele like the Rogerses, the Eatons, and Gerry Schwartz and Heather Reisman.) Its current owner is Greg MacNeil, a former president of St. Joseph Media, Toronto Life’s parent company.

Big selling point: The sumptuous wood-lined library—with Greek columns, arches above the two massive windows, and a fireplace—seems purpose-built for winter. Come warmer weather, the second-floor deck will be an excellent place to while away summer afternoons.

Possible deal breaker: The exterior, which still has some warehouse elements (note the faded logo on the red brick wall), belies the grand interior. That’s good for owners who want to keep a low profile, but anyone looking for curb appeal may want to keep looking.

By the numbers:

• $4,895,000
• $14,064.65 (2015 taxes)
• 4 bedrooms
• 4 bathrooms
• 2 parking spaces
• 2 fireplaces
• 1 interesting backstory

This colonnade is what visitors see when they walk in.

There’s a powder room off to the side.

The kitchen is recently updated, with new appliances.

The library has floor-to-ceiling panelling and a built-in projector.

The dining room is combined with the living areas.

Here’s the living room.

Here’s the family room.

And here’s how the whole first floor fits together. Note that giant, round skylight. Later, we’ll see what it looks like from above.

There are three bedrooms on the upper floors of the house.

This bedroom is above the garage, between the first and second floors. Those round windows are just begging for some kind of boat-themed decoration, but the owners have apparently restrained themselves.

This is the smaller of the two second-floor bedrooms. It and the rest of this level of the house got new flooring in 2014.

It has its own en suite bathroom.

And here’s the master bedroom.

It has a big walk-in closet.

And an even bigger en suite bathroom.

There’s also a rooftop deck with lots of space for entertaining. That domelike thing is the big, round skylight over the family room. This house has a lot of skylights.

There’s another bedroom in the basement, currently occupied by some kind of as-seen-on-TV exercise equipment.

The house is in a laneway, so it doesn’t have a lot of yard space—but what space it does have is thoroughly landscaped.

The building used to be a dry cleaning warehouse. From certain angles, it still looks like one.