[emphurent]

I don't tend to post about luxury developments, but this one is curious to me, as it lies pretty close by to the zoning curfuffle up the road.

This is not yet submitted to the city in a public sense, but I'm assuming this will utilize the St Clair West MTSA and adjacent apartment properties to argue for the upzoning, curious how that will go.

This large parcel was listed back in 2021. The concept was at 5 stories then. The buildings were fenced off and had demo permits pulled before the sale.

]

Design concept posted by Wengle as of last week. It can be found here.

 

[Northern Light]

Streetview of the above properties, the 3 easterly building are all fenced off and vacant already:

The western side of the site is one building removed from Spadina Road and Forest Hill's little retail village, while the eastern side is flanked by this 3-storey rental building:

Opposite the site is 2s SFH typology that looks equally ripe for reconsideration:

Fascinatingly modest street for the heart of Forest Hill!

 

[AlbertC]

I'd prefer red brick to what appears to be white/grey stone. But otherwise this is a good level of density to see more of in Forest Hill Village.

 

[junctionist]

I'd prefer red brick to what appears to be white/grey stone. But otherwise this is a good level of density to see more of in Forest Hill Village.

On the one hand, taking brick over stone seems like choosing a burger over steak. On the other hand, light-coloured stone and precast don't tend to weather well in our climate. Either will get stained and will likely need to be restored in 30-50 years' time.

 

[AlbertC]

I prefer the red brick aesthetic. As seen with the early 1900's American style apartments you'll find in cities like Boston or NYC. There's also a recent luxury townhome project in the area along Spadina Road called Konzulat Towns that uses predominantly red brick. Although considering the majority of Wengle's work and the common theme of Forest Hill custom builds, I can understand why stone is chosen here.

 

[junctionist]

I prefer the red brick aesthetic. As seen with the early 1900's American style apartments you'll find in cities like Boston or NYC. There's also a recent luxury townhome project in the area along Spadina Road called Konzulat Towns that uses predominantly red brick. Although considering the majority of Wengle's work and the common theme of Forest Hill custom builds, I can understand why stone is chosen here.

I've always been a fan of Montreal's iconic greystones and New York's brownstones. Many of New York's luxury prewar apartment buildings have stone-clad facades. Stone facades convey permanence and luxury and tend to be found in the most exclusive locales. That's not to say that colourful brick facades aren't appealing. They can make for impressive and exceptional buildings as well.

Stone, though, is usually reserved for the highest-end projects. A city with a lot of stone facades is a wealthy and economically successful city, or at least it was wealthy at some point in its history.

If you like this sort of thing, check out CWB MTL on Flickr. This account documented a lot of contemporary residential projects in the GTA with superb stone and brick cladding (until they stopped posting in 2019). Many of the buildings are traditional in design character, which isn't to everyone's taste, but the stone and brick used in the projects they documented is often sublime.

 

[Northern Light]

I've always been a fan of Montreal's iconic greystones and New York's brownstones. Many of New York's luxury prewar apartment buildings have stone-clad facades. Stone facades convey permanence and luxury and tend to be found in the most exclusive locales. That's not to say that colourful brick facades aren't appealing. They can make for impressive and exceptional buildings as well.

Stone, though, is usually reserved for the highest-end projects. A city with a lot of stone facades is a wealthy and economically successful city, or at least it was wealthy at some point in its history.

If you like this sort of thing, check out CWB MTL on Flickr. This account documented a lot of contemporary residential projects in the GTA with superb stone and brick cladding (until they stopped posting in 2019). Many of the buildings are traditional in design character, which isn't to everyone's taste, but the stone and brick used in the projects they documented is often sublime.

Putting aside some issues w/quality and consistency in some of Wengle's builds (which may well be on the 'I want 3 garages client' ); I think one of the problems w/stone usage here is that its the wrong stone and style to speak to Toronto's monied class buildings of the past.

Before we go modern, we see a fair few Toronto buildings that use brick in different ways through Victorian and then 'Deco periods.

However, we do have some stone, albeit more commonly in institutional usage (Queen's Park, Old City Hall, University College etc.)

But, if we looked for what was once residential, we might refer to Graydon Hall Manner:

Source: https://www.graydonhall.com/

Or perhaps we would reference Montgomery's Inn:

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...:EtobicokeIslingtonHistoricMontgomerysInn.JPG

Or perhaps Thornbeck-Bell House:

List of oldest buildings and structures in Toronto - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Note how none of these really align w/Wengle's offerings which really don't have much of a reference point in Toronto history. I prefer them to much of the dreck turned out by Dialog, KirKor and G+C and I happen to generally prefer the pre-WWII aesethics in architecture to the modern era, But buildings should have some context both in their area, and in their material palate

 

[Towered]

I prefer the red brick aesthetic. As seen with the early 1900's American style apartments you'll find in cities like Boston or NYC. There's also a recent luxury townhome project in the area along Spadina Road called Konzulat Towns that uses predominantly red brick. Although considering the majority of Wengle's work and the common theme of Forest Hill custom builds, I can understand why stone is chosen here.

It's always annoyed me how few stone buildings we have here.