Home of Cassidy Ritz and Kevin Harper. Renovation by architect Wanda Ely.Scott Norsworthy/Scott Norsworthy
Walk along the streets of Toronto’s Dovercourt Village – Hallam Street, Delaware Avenue, Dovercourt Road or Gladstone Avenue – and you’ll see the usual bricks-and-mortar suspects: small bay-and-gables, vaguely Craftsman-style semis, worker’s cottages and that ubiquitous 1960s/70s infill, the Toronto Special.
It’s the same architectural story down Cassidy Ritz and Kevin Harper’s street. Some squat two-storeys, some three, all mostly gabled and semi-detached, there is a quiet, pleasant, predictable rhythm. And should one think that calm continues after opening one of those sturdy and staid Toronto front doors, one has obviously never been a guest of the former city planner and retired tattoo artist.
There’s a drunken brass band slamming around in there, decor-wise.
Which, for architect Wanda Ely, who often designs sober, angular and beautiful $3-million-dollar country homes, was an opportunity to have a great deal of fun. “If someone says, you know, ‘I just want my place to be nice for the four years we’re here and then we’re selling,’ it’s different than ‘Hey, this is my forever home and I’m interested in making it bespoke for me,’” the award-winning architect says. “And then when you find out they’re interesting people, you’ve got the recipe for something cool.”
Recipe? If the Ritz/Harper place were a recipe, it’d be an aspic full of questionable chunks of meat prepared by an unskilled 1950s housewife. But it’d still be cool.
And because Ms. Ely and project lead Desirae Ward understand that, like a scuba diver, regulation and control must be applied before plunging into this alien world, when a first-time guest opens the door, the front room remains relatively unchanged. Yes, there is eclectic mid-century modern furniture, but, these days, that’s pretty common. There is framed tattoo flash art as well, but with the foreknowledge of Mr. Harper’s profession, also copacetic.
In the next room, however, the twinkling lights of a 1950s pinball machine are the lighthouse that warns the visitor that it’s time to be on his or her sea-legs. In this room, Ms. Ely has added bookshelves for the couple – and surprisingly they do contain mostly books – and created a portal into the new kitchen. And while one can spy long shelves groaning under the weight of all sorts of oddities and curiosities in there, one must first confront curio cabinets containing skulls and religious items in here first. And then, only then, is one prepared to enter the portal.
While the couple’s old kitchen was only eight feet wide and a single storey, the new one is the width of the house and now sports a second-storey extension over top. And because the couple wanted to keep the old flooring, Ms. Ely brought the new kitchen flooring through the portal like a sort of wooden tongue.
“Threshold-o-rama,” Ms. Ely says as we walk onto that tongue – thankfully not wet and squishy – and into the kitchen, where the first-timer’s jaw will undoubtably drop. And it’s not the carefully curated and contained Aladdin’s cave of taxidermy, old cameras, microscopes, baseballs gloves, Pez dispensers, tikis, flash art, bowling pins, wrestler masks and other tchotchkes that cause all the jaw-dropping, either. Impossibly, Ms. Ely has crafted a kitchen that not only competes with this kaleidoscope (or maybe collide-o-scope?) of kitsch, but complements it as well.
But first, those long shelves: “The idea of harnessing and containing, yeah,” Ms. Ely says. “When we looked at [the] inspiration images … I remember one had long, linear shelves and I thought, ‘okay we could maybe do a whole wall.’”
As for the kitchen itself, the cabinets are a hybrid of sleek, teak, Mad Men-esque wood with burnt orange inserts for the uppers while, on the bottom, it’s powder blue, tanker desk-style cabinets capped with stainless-steel countertops.
“It’s starting to get a patina of scratches and things,” Mr. Harper says of the countertop. He produces a large ball of compressed cigarette package foil that he says started his love of collecting when he was a boy.
And speaking of collecting, ordinary things, such as baking pans and brooms, now have a place: “I remember you guys being excited about the kitcheny organization,” says Ms. Ely. “Kevin, you in particular, really lit up when we were talking about places to put your shopping bags and stuff like that.”
A long, thin shelf ties kitchen backsplash to the new banquette by the window. Over the vintage German laminate table is a decommissioned City of Toronto “acorn” street light. And should one’s dinner be too dark, there’s a crank on its side: turn it, and your pork chops and apple sauce rise closer to the light source. For maximum legroom, the banquette is curved as it approaches the window.
Up the original, narrow staircase, we inspect the original primary bedroom with its tiny closet and Ms. Ritz’s collection of inflatable terrarium footstools before heading to see the new bathroom, which borrowed space from what was the second bedroom. In here, sun-tunnels illuminate the surprisingly sober black-and-white tiles and fixtures. To add a touch of whimsy, the kitties get a circular entryway to their litter box, and a salvaged door reading “Recreation Room” gives privacy to the humans. The humans also get a double shower.
“It is more work cleaning,” Ms. Ritz says with a laugh.
Closet space has been gained, of course, and to keep consistency between old house and new addition, new baseboards were made to match the old in the new primary bedroom, which is lit by a massive window.
Overall, it’s a massive change for this eclectic couple, functionally, aesthetically and structurally – a new party wall had to be built since in the old kitchen the drywall had been attached directly to the neighbouring house – and, best of all, it fits their lifestyle to a T.
“I think I’m going to bake a pie this weekend,” Ms. Ritz says with a big smile.