The Coach House sits on a unique L-shaped property, tucked into the backyards of an otherwise typical residential street in the Junction neighbourhood of Toronto. Only a long, narrow driveway, barely wide enough to drive on, connects the street to the site of a century old coach house. The original coach house had been severed from the main house in the ‘60s and had been hastily turned into a residence, albeit without adequate structural and infrastructural provisions for the next century. Nonetheless, the unique site at the rear yard of a deep property, and with no other dwellings immediately adjacent to it, offered an idyllic backdrop for a young family to build a new home. Along with the unique setting came the unique challenges of obtaining municipal approvals to build on a land-locked site, satisfying Building Code requirements for setbacks and fire safety, as well as the design issues of maintaining privacy when the front yard faced everyone else’s rear yard.
The property was clearly a zoning anomaly in the Junction area, where zoning bylaws discouraged the construction of one residence behind another; especially if there was no laneway access. It existed as a non-conforming residence, but if the existing coach house were demolished, the grandfather clause would not hold. The design of the new dwelling maintained the footprint of the original coach house as much as possible, to minimize the visual impact for the neighbours. A small exception being an addition to the side of the front wall, in order to create a “C” shaped building in plan. The rooms were organized with large windows facing the void in the middle of the C – a south-facing courtyard - while allowing the exterior of the building to remain more solid for privacy. The inward orientation of the layout not only provides privacy along the house’s perimeter, but also the opportunity to bring in natural light to all the rooms, and claim a small, private outdoor space where they could not be seen.
The Building Code would also typically preclude the ability to add windows at exterior walls less than 4’ from property lines for fire safety reasons: a fire could spread from one dwelling to another through windows, so a sprinkler consultant was brought in to design and implement this fire safety requirement. The water lines were upgraded from the street to the house, 100’ away from the connection, in order to provide the volume and pressure required. The sprinkler system was left exposed as a reminder of the effort taken to build in this safety feature.
The ground floor of the house contains a sizable entry (complete with storage space), a living room, a kitchen, dining and family room, as well as a guest bedroom with a private bath. The second floor holds the master bedroom with ensuite bath and walk-in closet, as well as a second bedroom and bath. The lower level has a large workshop space for woodworking, an infrared sauna, yoga room and a large media room.
