Roncesvalles Accessible House

The renovation of this solid brick house in Toronto’s Roncesvalles Village was predicated on making the house fully accessible for its residents. The scope of work involved an entirely new attached garage with a roof deck above, a residential elevator, and a full interior retrofit to open up spaces and improve performance, accessibility, and comfort. Great attention was given to every detail to ensure the house is both fully accessible and a restful and enjoyable place to be.

The home owners, a couple in their 50s with two teenaged children, came to Solares in 2013 to turn their house of 20 years into a fully accessible home. The father and husband of the household had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2006, and was soon in need of a mobility device. On hearing the news, the family began looking into purchasing an accessible home, but soon found out that accessible homes on the market are scarce and hugely expensive, as typically these homes are built as needed. Even a bungalow would have required extensive renovation work to become truly accessible, so the family decided instead to renovate their existing home. Though the home would need extensive renovations, it was still the most affordable and logical choice for the family.

The house was originally built in 1911, and was purchased by the family in 1989. It is three storeys tall, plus a basement, on a lot situated much higher than street level. At the front of the house, the main floor stands eight feet higher than grade, with winding stairs from the sidewalk to the home’s front porch, wrapped with foliage and greenery. The rear of the house sits ten feet higher than grade, and a laneway runs just behind the house. The laneway is accessible to all the neighbouring houses with garages, yet it was inaccessible from this home’s original raised backyard.

Rather than attach cumbersome mobility equipment to the house’s front facade, the back yard was completely excavated, and in its place an attached garage was created, with access to the rear laneway. The home is only a few houses in from where the laneway meets the cross street, which allows our client an easy entrance from new at-grade garage. The garage opens up to the basement “man cave”, with nine foot ceilings, a living space, a bathroom, a studio space, and a guest bedroom for one of their two children.

The home’s existing stair was removed from along one wall of the house, and a central stacked stair was built alongside a new elevator shaft. Both the elevator and the stair open up to the same landing on each floor.

On the ground-floor, the elevator and stairs sit between a large dining room tucked into the front of the house, and a kitchen and living area toward the back of the house. The dining room is adorned with reclaimed vintage ceiling beams from an old demolished church in midtown Toronto.

The kitchen area is spacious, with a breakfast bar and a low, accessible countertop with its own sink and plenty of room for appliances and kitchen prep. Beyond the kitchen is the living area, which looks onto a rooftop terrace on top of the garage. The terrace is also equipped with full-depth flowerbeds that encircle the garage.

Two bedrooms and a bathroom are located on the second floor. The master bedroom looks out onto the back patio, with a large low-set window. The stair is flanked by a full bathroom and a compact laundry room. In the front of the house, an extra kid’s bedroom is equipped with a large front window.

The house previously had no laneway access from the backyard. In order to provide access, the entire backyard had to be fully excavated, which was a huge and difficult process. Plus, building an attached garage was outside typical zoning bylaws, yet with enormous support from the community we were able to obtain special permission from the city, with help from our client, who gathered 30 letters of support from the neighbours!

Another difficult undertaking was making the second floor bathroom fully accessible. The floor of the wide shower needed a slight slope downwards for drainage, yet raising the floor to allow for a slope was impossible, as transitional steps are inaccessible to wheelchairs. Instead, a lower sub-floor had to be created between the existing joists, allowing the shower to be on grade yet also slope downward.

The house is designed and built to Solares’ green home philosophy, and the builder Spaces Construction and Renovation did an amazing job in ensuring the design was perfectly executed, with an airtight envelope, lots of insulation and high quality windows and doors.