Misho Shaltout/The Print Market
155 St Clair Ave. W., Unit 1701
Asking price: $6,749,000
Property taxes: $20,400
Size: More than 2,800 square feet
Monthly maintenance fees: $4,003.31
Agent: Dino J. Capocci, Royal LePage Real Estate Services Ltd.
When you know you know: it’s a simple palilogy (a repetition of words for emphasis) that’s also something of an axiom for being decisive.
Former Broadway producer and film and television financier Bernie Abrams knew he wanted an apartment in the Forest Hill-area building known as The Avenue as soon as he saw a “Coming Soon” billboard near the St. Clair and Avenue site.
“I’m somewhat impetuous,” said Mr. Abrams. “I called the developer and asked for an appointment. … I knew who he was but I didn’t know him personally. I just decided to give him a call.”
The meeting in the offices of developer Camrost-Felcorp might have been as early as 2002, long before the project was even ready to launch sales for the general public. “He didn’t have any sales material yet, didn’t have a brochure printed yet. I said, ‘I don’t care,’” said Mr. Abrams. He saw the blueprints – that was enough, in addition to his feeling that the location couldn’t be beat. “I said, ‘We’d like to make an offer.’ I was one of the first buyers.”
It took a while to move in though – construction wasn’t finished until 2011 – but Mr. Abrams has been there ever since. In the intervening time there were other big moves in his professional life. An accountant by training, he had transitioned into financing Canadian-made film and television in the 80s and 90s (his resume includes co-ordinating as many as 160 projects and more than $5-billion in funding). Tax credit changes in the early 2000s saw him move out of film and television and into stage productions.
For the next two decades his company, StageVentures (with business partner Michael Speyer), financed and produced nine Broadway shows in New York. He’s perhaps most proud of his first effort in 2004, a staging of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels as a musical starring film and TV actor John Lithgow, for which Mr. Abrams received a Tony award nomination (the production received 11 nods with one win for best actor in a musical for Norbert Leo Butz).
Mr. Abram’s final project was 2022′s Paradise Square, a production that also marked the Broadway comeback of Canadian producer Garth Drabinsky more than 20 years after his former company Livent collapsed in bankruptcy and he was convicted of fraud, eventually serving prison time in Canada.
“It was tough: the day after opening night, eight of the cast came down with COVID-19, and it was impossible to get the momentum going again,” said Mr. Abrams. The musical’s run didn’t last long, and has since been dogged by controversy and lawsuits related to Mr. Drabinsky. “COVID pretty much shut down live theatre, I’m at an age where I’m choosing not to get into any risk ventures.”
The condo
The apartment takes up the eastern half of the 17th-storey floorplate, with rooms facing north and south at the far ends of the long unit. The unit is one of two on the floor (three storeys below the penthouse level), where the building begins to step back into tiers, meaning two of the apartment’s three separate terraces open to the sky without any balconies above them.
There are two ways into the unit: the first is a door to the hallway shared with the other apartment, but the floor plan is designed to centre the elevator that goes from the parking level and opens up inside the unit’s main foyer. Not to worry; there are security lockouts on that elevator to keep unknown visitors from stepping directly into your space.
“It is fabulous; the elevators are programmed not to stop in-between floors, so you do have privacy all the way up,” Mr. Abrams said, which cuts down on awkward elevator conversations. “Sometimes it’s lonely, sometimes it’s nice.”
The space is not a wide-open like some condos: it’s built more like Forest Hill’s Edwardian and Victorian ramblers that have multiple rooms, hallways and pocket doors to close off open areas. Officially a two- bedroom unit, this more than 2,800 square foot apartment has the space to be reconfigured for larger families.
From the marble-tiled central foyer hallways extend into the various chambers of the apartment. To the right, the primary bedroom suite has two large walk-in closets, a four-piece bathroom and south-facing windows. “I push a button, the blinds go up and I can see the lake as I’m waking up,” said Mr. Abrams.
A second hallway to the right connects to one of the two lounge/living areas with terrace access, this one is the south-east corner of the building and has a gas fireplace and terrace views providing a direct line of sight down Avenue Road with the CN Tower in the distance.
“Nothing’s ever going to be built that’s going to block its views,” said Mr. Abrams. “South of me there’s a six-storey condo; east of me is the Ministry of the Environment, a year from now it’s going to be redeveloped but the footprint isn’t going to interfere with my view; looking north there’s a park. I can see the watchtower of UCC [Upper Canada College] if I want to tell the time.”
The unit has a direct line of sight down Avenue Road with the CN Tower in the distance.Misho Shaltout/The Print Market
The hallway to the south-east room passes by the formal dining room, which is connected to the kitchen (also accessible from a hallway on the left of the central foyer) both with east-facing windows. The kitchen was one of the upgrades in the apartment – a former client from Mr. Abrams’s days a public accountant was instrumental – and features a U-shaped layout of millwork, counter and cabinet space with all the usual high-end gadgets centred by a large block of central island. Between the window and the island is a seating area for coffee and sunrises. Just off the kitchen is transitional space between the glass doors to the north-facing terrace (with barbecue) and laundry room/storage area that currently has a second office space set up with views to the east.
You can use these terrace doors to travel to the last separated area of the apartment, or you could go back through the kitchen and past the exterior hallway door. This area could almost be its own apartment but in the current layout it holds the second bedroom which has been converted to an office complete with Dirty Rotten Scoundrel’s playbill. Around the corner is the north-facing living room/lounge, which has its own terrace (separated from the smaller kitchen terrace) along with a second gas fireplace and with a large television mounted above. Around a corner is a nook with glass doors that provide access to the separated kitchen-adjacent barbecue terrace.
The building
The building, known as The Avenue, is located at St. Clair Ave W and Avenue Rd., in Toronto.Misho Shaltout/The Print Market
“We’ve had some interesting people in the building from time to time,” said Mr. Abrams. “That former captain of the Leafs – Dion Phaneuf? – he lived in the building with Elisha Cuthbert. They used to live two floors below, they were just tenants.”
Mr. Abrams has been the condo board president for close to a decade, but is discreet enough not to mention the names of other wealthy and notable Toronto residents who own units. “It’s just a nice, high-end building. We have a couple social events but it’s not on the social circuit,” he said.
He’s also not leaving the building, just moving a few floors away. After his wife of 32 years (Tona Abrams) died in 2023, he grew close to another long-time resident whom he had known socially. It was “an elevator romance” he said – luckily they shared the same private elevator bank. Mr. Abrams, who just turned 77, is moving into her place.
When you know you know.