Raw Signal Group headquarters in the renovated Imperial Bank building at 1414 Danforth Ave., Toronto.Rick O'Brien Photographer
Up until the early 1950s and the arrival of the International Style to our shores, banks were fortresses, dressed in the familiar architectural robes of the ancient Greeks: pediment, entablature, column, with the sidewalk usually working as the stylobate (base).
So, when the Imperial Bank of Canada decided to replace their small, squat, 1920 brick building at the corner of Danforth and Monarch Park avenues with a permanent edifice in 1927 – the east end neighbourhood had been growing rapidly since the Prince Edward Viaduct opened in 1918 – architects Charles Langley and William Howland presented drawings for a wide, columned, limestone-clad and dentil-moulded building not unlike banks they’d done at 2896 Dundas St. W. or 3 King St. S. in Waterloo, Ont. While none of these had pediments, they more than made up for it with extra-thick walls and broad shoulders. Money, in here, was safe.
However, with enough deferred maintenance, ill-advised coats of exterior paint, unsympathetic interior renovations, and poor signage choices, even fortresses can begin to look frail.
Despite that, when Melissa and Johnathan Nightingale toured the old Imperial Bank at 1414 Danforth Ave., which had been a cheque cashing and payday loans business since the 1990s, they could see past the water-damaged drop ceiling, cheap floor tiles, indiscreet tunnelling through moulding and the tacky bulletproof screens, at the building’s big, strong bones.
“The vast majority of Toronto inventory, particularly on the commercial side, is 20 by 100 [feet],” says Ms. Nightingale. “But we needed width, and width is very hard to find in Toronto.”
Their company, Raw Signal Group, hosts management trainees from around the world; a wide, welcoming space to allow folks to enter, mingle, hang up coats, easily spot the coffee station, and then gather for the day’s sessions wasn’t a frill; it was a core principle of the business model.
After touring and rejecting 50 properties such as small warehouses and multistoried offices, there was but one solution left, says Mr. Nightingale: “Our realtor said, ‘I know a place that’s not for sale, they’ve been trying to rent it. Let me see if they’d be willing to look at a sale instead.’” And so, $4-million later, the old Imperial Bank was the RSG’s new headquarters. Little did the Nightingales know it would take another $2-million for the transformation.
“It helps to be stupid,” Ms. Nightingale says with a smile. “And to believe that the hard part of restoration is having the original terrazzo floors underneath. That was not the hard part. The hard part is getting all the crap off to be able to see them.”
“So much of it was ‘Well, I hope,’” adds her husband. “I hope once we’re done demolition, there’s something there we can restore; If there isn’t, we’ll figure something else out. But we knew, structurally, that it would do what we needed.”
“Somebody put care into everything that was original here,” finishes Ms. Nightingale, who grew up in Baltimore. “Then, for many years, nobody cared. And so, coming in, we [said] ‘We understand what our job is as stewards of the building … and in relation to Toronto history.”
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But the more noble the task, the more painful the pitfalls.
“You’d [ask] ‘What are we going to discover today?’ and we’d park and we’d brace for [something] behind [whatever] wall [had come down],” says Mr. Nightingale. “And we get out of the car – the backyard wasn’t fenced in at the time it was all mud – and there was a frying pan with a dead rat in it.”
Thankfully, that grisly find and the dirty mattresses that surrounded it are now a distant memory. To be invited inside 1414 Danforth Ave. is an absolute heritage-lover’s dream: past a new wrought iron gate, doors open to wonderfully shiny terrazzo floors underfoot (interestingly, they stop where the old teller cages began), a tall ceiling with reproduction moulding overhead (the original was too damaged to keep). There’s a lovely kitchenette called “The Blue Bar” to the left and, in the distance, the 1960s vault turned into the coolest chill-out room (all by interior designers MetteSpace).
The basement, once “murder-y,” is now outfitted with three washrooms, a massive catering kitchen, more safes, and tons of storage. “If you ask someone in real estate, they’ll [say] ‘Well, that square footage doesn’t count.’ Well, we use it – that’s 2200 square feet!”
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Accessed via a separate entrance, the second floor contains office space for the couple and their two employees, and a digital room where online courses are held. And while the Nightingales have opened things up, replacement bits of wood flooring trace out original walls for a dentist and an accountant’s office, and, in the rear, the bank manager’s apartment, complete with a fireplace.
“The fireplace was in the original 1927 Langley and Howland blueprints,” says Ms. Nightingale.
Pointing to the blueprint, Mr. Nightingale adds, “Here is how we want the masonry to look like on the front.”
Speaking of masonry, after a test with chemical strippers and steam revealed healthy limestone underneath the paint, the Nightingales are preparing to spend $100,000 to bring their south and east façades back to life (the north and west are brick) … but not before welcoming the neighbourhood during Doors Open.
“You can’t move into a building like this and not take care of it,” finishes Mr. Nightingale.
Raw Signal Group, 1414 Danforth Ave., will be open both days for Toronto’s annual Doors Open, May 23 & 24.
Unrelated: If you missed my book launch party, I’ll be at Swipe Design, 401 Richmond St. W., during Doors Open, May 23 only, from noon to 3 p.m.