Sale of the Week: The $2-million house that shows what an unrenovated heritage home is worth

Address: 7 Triller Avenue
Neighbourhood: Parkdale Agent: Kathy Essery and Pavlena Brown, Sage Real Estate Limited, Brokerage      

The property

A unique Arts and Crafts home, with many of its heritage features intact.

The history

The home was built in 1912 by Henry Simpson, a Toronto builder, as his private residence. At the time, the home was far from the city centre, with plenty of room for stables in the back. The seller is a 90-year-old woman who lived in the house for 47 years and is now moving into a Roncesvalles retirement home. She hoped a young family would buy the property.

The living room has a fireplace, and some benches built right into the wainscotting:

Yup, that carpet is wall to wall:

The home still has some original stained glass:

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

And another:

And another:

And another:

And there are two more bedrooms on the third floor:

The basement is semi-finished:

The fate

The buyers—who are, in fact, a family—wrote a letter to the seller expressing their intention to preserve the home. The mother, an architect who specializes in restoring and maintaining old homes, said she planned to build a secret tunnel for the kids in the house’s crawlspace. The buyers will likely make some other changes, too, but with a focus on preserving the home’s history.

They’ll probably end up renovating the kitchen, for instance:

The sale

The agents marketed the home over a seven day period. One of their open houses involved a Q&A session with a local historian and a renovation expert.

By the numbers

• $2,000,000 • $7,000 in taxes (approximately) • 4,295 square feet (including the basement) • 9 parking spaces • 7 days on MLS • 6 bedrooms • 2 bathrooms