Birdhouse Media
200 Cumberland St., unit Suite 3802, Toronto
Asking price: $17.8-million
Annual property taxes: $39,741.46 (2024)
Maintenance fees: $8,057.26
Listing agent: Claudine Montano, broker, Corcoran Horizon Realty
The backstory
Believe it or not, at more than 4,000 square feet, the luxury apartment on the 38th floor of Cumberland Tower in Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood was a downsizing option for its current owners.
In 2020, Tom Dellamaestra was looking to move his family from an 18,000-square foot-home in Oakville, Ont., to something more central in Toronto, in part to be close to his daughter as she finished university and in part because he’d never tried the downtown lifestyle.
“I was a Hamilton guy and moved around to Woodbridge for a little bit; Milton, Cambellville,” he said. Mr. Dellamaestra’s business was Blueline Distribution, a trucking business that specialized in high-value goods such as luxury cars, wine and spirits from the United States and Mexico.
As his business grew, his tastes expanded as well and he connected with Ferris Rafauli, a builder to the ultrawealthy, to custom design more than one house. Mr. Rafauli’s business was also expanding, and after managing builds such as Toronto rapper Drake’s estimated $100-million Bridle Path mansion he was simply too busy to help his friend spend a couple of million finishing a condo. It was, frankly, a bit of a let-down according to Mr. Dellamaestra.
“We were exposed to the crème de la crème: he built our place in Muskoka; he’s all over Archictectural Digest; he’s doing places for [Wayne] Gretzky; he did Drake’s house; he’s a brand ambassador for Rolls Royce,” he said. Luckily, he made use of the more-than-able skills of interior designer Tomas Pearce and took an important lesson from Mr. Raufali about taste and restraint even when money is almost no object. “One thing I learned from him is you can personalize something – you want to be extravagant and put gold leaf painting in the ceiling; You might love that kind of stuff – but always consider the next guy,” said Mr. Dellamaestra.
The condo today
When he first looked at the condo it was basically concrete walls with steel studs and rough-ins for kitchen and bathrooms.
“We took the developer’s idea of how he was going to finish it and redid all the ceiling details and removed walls to open up the views,” said Mr. Dellamaestra. “In a normal condo, you talk about a maze, it’s all hallways and walls, when you come in the door here you see the city. … It’s a $17-million view.”
From the small elevator foyer (there’s only two apartments on the floor) No. 3802 opens onto slabs of marble flooring along a hallway framed by brushed-brass casing on the way to a set of sliding door windows that open to the south-facing terrace. This is the central spine of the apartment, a hallway off to the right before the great room heads to the bedrooms.
“We spend a lot of our time in the central great room,” Mr. Dellamaestra said of the L-shaped space with a living room on the left and kitchen and dining on the right, all facing the wall of windows with the cityscape to the south. Right in the centre of it all is a transition space with a seating area and a bar: “The view in those four chairs, I could sit there for hours. … It’s the best, post-card backdrop,” he said.
The apartment comes fully furnished with custom-made pieces made in Italy and elsewhere that fit the marble and brass palette of the home and its mainly muted white walls.
The 12-foot-long fireplace in the 14-foot-wide hearth (made with book-matched marble slabs) dominates the left side of the room, and when the 12-foot projection-TV screen rolls down from the ceiling it becomes a different kind of focal point: “If you want the fireplace on, great, or maybe you want to watch the Leafs lose, or whatever,” said Mr. Dellamaestra.
On the way to the kitchen, a round dining room table sits below a giant circular ceiling tray with conical light fixture situated in the windowed corner of the suite (with a bank of extra window seating to boot).
An unusual polygonal island in gray stone centres the condo's kitchen.Birdhouse Media
A slab of marble appears to be suspended by brass rods to form a breakfast bar on the western window wall next to the kitchen millwork. Centring the kitchen is an unusual polygonal island in gray stone.
“That’s something my wife and I picked out somewhere, we saw it in Europe. … It’s an art piece not just a square block island,” said Mr. Dellamaestra. The hardest part was convincing the installers that it could work to book-match the slabs together to form a near-seamless angular shape. “They looked at you like you’re half nuts. … The slabs alone were almost $80,000 and the labour … it was very cost prohibitive.”
The backsplash above the cooktop is also an art piece, a vaguely Art Deco mosaic-like arrangement of geometry by artist Rob Baylor.
Off the kitchen a hallway leads to a laundry, a butler’s pantry and a powder room, with more marble slabs and polished metal.
There are three bedrooms: two decently sized guest bedrooms with ensuite baths and a very large primary suite. For the primary suite, more brushed and polished brass is sprinkled amid the stone and porcelain slabs (not to mention more chandeliers with glass or Baccarat crystal) in the ensuite bath and the dressing room beside the two walk-in closets (his and hers). The guest rooms have cooler tones of silver, grey and white.
The Bat Cave
In addition to amenities you might expect for a luxury building with just 48 apartments owned by wealthy professionals, executives and athletes (rooftop pool, golf simulator, 24-hour concierge) Mr. Dellamaestra has horse-traded his way into acquiring six contiguous underground parking spots that he has enclosed to house a luxury car collection Bruce Wayne could admire.
“I’ve driven them all; I had a Porsche, Lambos, Bentleys … I’ve never gotten into the Bugatti, that isn’t the car for Canada,” he said. As a long-time car-guy he had to downsize his collection as well, but he kept the pick of the litter from a very unique used-car hookup.
“We were the exclusive carrier for Drake, [transporting by truck] all of Drake’s cars when he’d go back and forth to L.A.,” said Mr. Dellamaestra. “Drake’s the kind of guy who had a car for six months and then he’d want to get rid of it; so I’d buy it. He had a Maybach, I don’t know if he knew he owned that … there were no miles on it when I bought that off him. I bought two or three Rolls off him; barely driven.”
Alas, unlike the furnishings, the cars don’t come with the apartment.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly said the apartment is almost 4,000 square feet. It is more than 4,000 square feet. This version has been updated.