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home of the week
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DOK Photo Studio Inc.

The listing: 52 Elliotwood Court, Toronto

Asking Price: $1.868-million

Taxes: $7,419.52 (2018)

Lot Size: 33- by 136-feet (irregular)

Agents: Patrice Gale (Sotheby’s International Realty Canada)

The back story

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The rear of the house features floor-to-ceiling windows.DOK Photo Studio Inc.

In the 1960s, William Bleakley was a Toronto-based architect who made a specialty of designing dozens of public school buildings in Scarborough and other parts of the city.

The partner at A.M. Ingleson Architects designed few residences during his career, but in 1968, Mr. Bleakley was offered the chance to purchase a piece of farmland north of Toronto.

The vast Elliot family farm was slated for development and Mr. Bleakley decided to build a new home for his wife, Orma, and son John. The architect had his pick of lots in the rolling landscape of fields and forests.

Mr. Bleakley chose a pie-shaped parcel along the fence line that divided the Elliot farm from land belonging to tycoon E.P. Taylor.

Today, that former farmland is the affluent neighbourhood of York Mills. The Bleakley house sits north of the busy intersection of York Mills Road and Leslie Street in the enclave known as St-Andrew-Windfields.

The house today

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The home is built around a central courtyard.DOK Photo Studio Inc.

Mr. Bleakley died in 1999, but his son John remembers the many evenings his father spent at his drafting table in their first family home.

“It was probably in his brain for some time,” says John Bleakley of his father’s design. “He’d go down after dinner and work in the unfinished basement.

He says his father chose the site for its south-facing exposure and the mature trees that sheltered the view from the neighbouring property.

“He wanted to be on the fence line because of the beautiful trees.”

The lot, which is 33 feet at the street, widens to 122 feet at the rear.

Mr. Bleakley would create a one-storey family residence built around a courtyard. The interior featured contemporary materials such as redwood and brick.

“Dad had a real respect for Frank Lloyd Wright,” Mr. Bleakley says of the vaunted American architect.

When his father built a scale model of their new home, five-year-old John used it as a race course for his miniature Hot Wheels cars.

While the house was under construction, the family would drive up to watch the progress.

At the time, the E.P. Taylor property was still an operating farm with cattle and thoroughbred racing horses.

“We’d go on the weekend and they’d let you visit the stables,” recalls Mr. Bleakley, who would later play with his friends on the surrounding farmland.

“As a dare, you’d run across the field with the bulls in it.”

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The entrance foyer has a view through to the backyard.DOK Photo Studio Inc.

The finished one-storey house provided privacy from the street at the front and floor-to-ceiling windows at the rear.

Guests arrived to a foyer with a tiled floor, cedar trim and a view straight through to the backyard.

“You come in and the house pulls you in,” Mr. Bleakley says.

His father was conscious of protecting the environment and reducing energy use, says Mr. Bleakley, explaining the building was insulated far above the level required by regulations at the time.

The south-facing expanse of glass let in warming rays when the winter sun was at a low angle, but the interior was sheltered in warmer months.

“You get solar heating in winter, but coolness in the summer from the big trees and the overhang,” he says.

There’s also a brick fireplace in mid-century style.

Ceilings are more than eight feet high and the casement-style windows are all trimmed in redwood, Mr. Bleakley points out. “They’ll never rot; they’ll never decompose.”

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A partial wall separates the dining room from the living room.DOK Photo Studio Inc.

A partial wall creates separation between the living room and the dining room. Mr. Bleakley says people could circulate easily, but guests sitting in the living room either before or after dinner would not have a view into the dining room.

“There’s some intimacy within the rooms, but they’re not closed in,” he says. “It was really built for entertaining.”

The “very sixties” kitchen is on trend today, with wood cabinets, flat panel doors and an island, points out real estate agent Patrice Gale of Sotheby’s International Realty Canada.

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The listing agent says the 'very sixties' kitchen's flat panel doors and wood cabinets make it very on-trend in 2019.DOK Photo Studio Inc.

The adjacent family room has a brick wall, cedar accents, and a door opening to the garden.

A side entrance door leads to a mudroom on the main level and stairs to the basement.

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The family room opens to the backyard.DOK Photo Studio Inc.

The master bedroom has floor-to-ceiling glass with casement windows.

“In every room in the house, you can get fresh air,” Mr. Bleakley says.

A wall of louvered doors that allow air to flow to the interior of the his-and-hers closets.

Another element that was innovative for the time was the built-in speakers bringing sound throughout the house.

The family bathroom has a bathtub, double sinks and an Italian marble counter top in powder blue.

A second bedroom at the front of the house has floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a courtyard.

A third bedroom is currently used as a study.

Mr. Bleakley recalls rapid development of the area in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

“We were the first house started. The street grew very quickly within the first two or three years.”

Eventually all of the area’s farmland was replaced with suburban homes, shopping centres and high-rise apartment buildings.

But the Bleakleys preserved their corner of nature.

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The original owners of the home worked to preserve their own green space as the surrounding area was developed.DOK Photo Studio Inc.

Over the years, the Bleakleys tended to the garden outside and encouraged northern cardinals, blue jays, finches and woodpeckers to visit their feeders.

“Dad and Mom were both big gardeners and bird watchers,” Mr. Bleakley says.

As Elliotwood Court filled in, the elder Mr. Bleakley fought with the city to have a landscaped island in the centre of the cul-de-sac. He prevailed by doing the design himself.

“He didn’t want all asphalt. He designed an island and what was going to be on it,” the younger Mr. Bleakley says.

Mr. Bleakley’s mother, Orma Hooper, recently left the house where she had lived for 50 years to be closer to him.

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The best feature

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The living room projects out into the garden, with windows on three sides.DOK Photo Studio Inc.

Mr. Bleakley designed the living room to project into the backyard, with windows on three sides.

“You feel like you’re sitting in the garden,” Mr. Bleakley says of the spot where his mother placed a comfortable chair for reading.

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