Clanton Park home embraces a New Formalism

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At some point in the 1990s, walls became anathema to designers. Open plan hard lofts had been crowned king, and even new builds mimicked their naked, no-holds-barred, see-it-all-from-the-front-door approach. Even folks with older homes that were built around the principle of formality – a room for sitting, a room for dining, a room for reading – ripped away century-old millwork, moulding and cabinetry to expose fine old Victorians to modern whims (in Toronto that had started as early as the 1970s when the “white-painters” came to Cabbagetown).

This ill-considered age continued, unabashed, for almost three decades. It was a time when coziness and cubbyholes were thrown to the proverbial wolves, a time when owners of wood-panelled libraries in Forest Hill or the Annex felt compelled to keep their mouths sewn tightly shut. A time, ultimately, when it was not thought possible that the old ways could be married to the new.

That time is over. Welcome to the New Formalism.

“I like separation of rooms,” says homeowner Erin Gano. “I don’t necessarily want people in my kitchen beyond the inner circle, the family, the close friends; there are other places to hang out.”

Even from the outside, Ms. Gano’s new house – her husband, Marcel Jakubovic, is co-founder of Stein and Regency, the construction management company that built it – has an air of dignity and old-worldliness about it. On a street in Toronto’s Clanton Park neighbourhood filled with postwar, brick bungalows and McMansions, it presents a countenance of chunky Owen Sound stone interrupted by smooth bands of limestone that frame windows and doors. But to avoid pomposity, designers Michael Fohring and Arancha González Bernardo of Odami have treated the façade as if it were a sliding tile puzzle: shift one window that way, slide the canopy to the right.

“We were trying to play with the symmetry, and find a bit of contemporary within that language,” says Mr. Fohring, who received his Master of Architecture at Montreal’s McGill University. “It’s an honest expression of the interior, where you have the axis running right through the middle. … It was setting up a really ordered system and then finding ways of subverting it a little bit.”

Those invited to a dinner party at the Gano-Jakubovic residence will notice the orderliness first. Walk inside the white oak panelled foyer, walk up three steps and a 19th-century centre-hall plan unravels before you. To one’s right is a formal library – ”Every single book here has been read,” Ms. Gano says with a laugh – which contains the “best seat in the house,” a Sasufi chair and ottoman by Montreal’s Perez. It’s a lovely place to thumb through a Mordecai Richler novel (Mr. Jakubovic is on the same family tree) or a book on Georgian interiors.

To the left is the “fireplace room.” Here, what could’ve been an overwhelming, monolithic objet has been softened via curved edges and a finish of microcement, which, since it is trowelled on, contains imperfect, human-made microbumps and microridges.

Walk a little further and the first bit of rebellion occurs: the staircase is not up the middle, but rather tucked to the side. “I don’t like when you walk into a house and you see stairs,” says Ms. Gano. “There was a constant back-and-forth between this formal setup, like Michael was saying, but a modern feeling.”

“I think, for us, we try not to think of things as exclusively as just contemporary … or traditional or this or that, but think about things in a timeless way,” adds Mr. Fohring. “We’re not shy about mixing or blending … a sort of idea of a continuation of time. … This could’ve been a renovation of an old house.”

Order, and the old house feel of this new build, is restored opposite the stairs. There, one finds an actual, enclosed dining room with a ‘secret’ door to the kitchen (which is, like in olden days, located at the rear of the house). But, again, Odami has thumbed their design nose just a little with a contemporary, all-white spin on china cabinets and floor-to-ceiling panelling.

In the kitchen, quartzite rules. And while it enrobes island, counter, and backsplash, the veining is quiet enough that it won’t cause guests to choke on their hors d’oeuvres … but the price might. “It’s not a cheap material,” admits Mr. Jakubovic. “I want to say around seven or eight thousand dollars a slab … or more.”

Above the cooktop, the soft curves of the fireplace wall make a reappearance, and an informal family room is a few steps down from the kitchen; the separation was intentional, and made possible because, underneath, their six-year-old’s basement playroom doesn’t require a high ceiling.

Because the staircase is a side-piece rather than a centrepiece, it was allowed to become an objet d’art by encasing it top-to-bottom and front-to-back in white oak veneer: “We wanted to do something that fit the orthogonality of the house … strong and structured. … We didn’t really want to do that sweeping kind of staircase that everyone seems to be doing.”

Climb to the top – the skylight overhead means electric lighting isn’t necessary much of the time – and rest on an alpaca-upholstered sofa on the generous landing (there’s a lovely lenticular photograph of the moon by Dan Hudson over it) or peek into the boy’s bedroom or the principal bedroom, which is not massive. But the dressing room is – another nod to the 21st-century tendency to own a great many more clothes and shoes than our grandparents did.

And speaking of time, there is a timelessness about this house. Because it was drawn by two talented designers – Ms. Bernardo is a registered architect in Spain – there is very little tension between modern and traditional. It’s seamless, stylish, and suited to all eras: a French Baroque chair would look as good as an Eames LCW in any of its rooms.

Yet, ironically, both Stein and Regency and Odami are less than 10 years old. From out of the mouths of babes comes … great architecture?