http://www.yourhome.ca/homes/hometype/condos/article/932209--hume-the-second-empire-strikes-back
Hume: The Second Empire strikes back
February 4, 2011
Christopher Hume
STAR COLUMNIST
Sherbourne, a street that was once among the most desirable in Toronto, can no longer lay claim to that title. Indeed, since its heyday in the last decades of the 19th century, it has fallen on hard times. Though many of the exquisite mansions built by our wealthy Victorian ancestors remain, more have been demolished to make way for unworthy successors. As a result, Sherbourne is a crazy mix of faded elegance and soiled mediocrity. It’s clear from the evidence that in the years after World War II, few were paying attention to the city. That and the general flight to the suburbs left neighbourhoods such as this abandoned to the poor.
Now that has started to change. Despite the damage done during the last half-century, those areas once disparagingly known as the “inner core” have become newly attractive. Much remains to be done, but things are looking up. Though there’s little talk about it, even once-trendy St. James Town could be rehabilitated to make it less of an eyesore, to connect it to the larger city and reduce the overwhelming scale of the complex. All this will happen, eventually, but only if Torontonians continue to focus on the city, not treat it simply as a place to move through on the way to work. The rich of an earlier era constructed their homes on major streets so the world could see their success. In these more suspicious times, the wealthy prefer to hide away in kitsch enclaves like Post Rd., places built more for leaving than staying.
chume@thestar.ca
CONDO CRITIC
James Cooper Mansion, 582 Sherbourne St.: This remarkable project is probably best known because the marvelous Second Empire house at Sherbourne and Linden St. was moved six or seven metres to make way for it. The tower is actually more of a landmark from a distance; up close, it almost seems to disappear. The mansion to the east is one reason, but there’s a row of townhouses along Linden that also distract the eye from what’s going on above. On the other hand, the complex has virtually no street presence.
The tower itself is pretty much what one would expect at this point. The blue-grey tinted glass brings little to the scheme, and the entrance feels strangely understated. The designers wisely decided to defer to the Cooper house, a wonderfully exuberant example of the Second Empire style popular with Toronto’s nouveau riche 130 years ago. The extended cornice at the top of the tower adds a welcome note of finality to the building, one that will forever be praised as an instance of how to live and let live.
Grade: A
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