House of the Week: $6 million for a Richmond Hill house that once belonged to a member of Rush

Address: 65 High Oak Trail
Neighbourhood: Richmond Hill
Agents: Voula Argyropoulos and Jerry Hammond, Hammond International Properties Ltd., Brokerage
Price: $5,980,000
Previously sold for: $2,900,000 in 2011, before a renovation

The place

A French-style mansion in Richmond Hill previously owned by a rock and roll legend.

The history

The home was built in mid 1980s for Alex Lifeson of Rush. The original design included a recording studio, which appeared in several Rush videos at the height of the band’s popularity. The current owner, a toy inventor for Disney and Hasbro, bought the home in 2011 and completed a multi-million dollar renovation over seven years. The recording studio is gone, but the original style remains.

Here’s the foyer:

The great room has high ceilings and a Juliet balcony:

Here’s the living room:

And the kitchen and dining area:

There are five bedrooms on the second floor. Here’s one of them:

And another:

And here’s the master bedroom’s sitting area:

Big selling point

Cool history aside, the home sits on a lush 2.5-acre lot that looks more like a scene from The Secret Garden than a suburban backyard, complete with a tennis court and pool. The grounds cost millions of dollars to landscape in the 1980s:

Possible deal breaker

The impressive backyard requires a great deal of care to maintain. The buyer will almost certainly need to hire a grounds crew.

By the numbers

• $5,980,000
• $27,345 in property taxes
• 10,000 square feet
• 10 parking spaces
• 7 bathrooms
• 5 bedrooms