In Toronto, a lakeside retreat

Open this photo in gallery:

90 Meadowcliffe Dr., Toronto

Asking price: $3,499,000

Taxes: $6,738 (2024)

Lot size: 187 by 60 feet

Agent: Ingrid Furtado, broker, Real Estate Homeward

Toronto is a city of skyscrapers and subways and stadiums and streetcars, but away from the urban core there are still spots that might as well be 150 kilometres away on a lonely lake.

“I used to live in The Beach and we found it was very busy and hard to find parking. All that stuff was an issue,” said Mary Opper, a retired creative director for book publishers. Over the years she moved further east, to Scarborough’s bluffs communities, and then about 18 years ago she and her husband stumbled across their next house. “We lived two streets over in a more traditional home, and we were walking by when we saw the For Sale sign.” Within two weeks, they owned the house. “It was the biggest impulse buy we’d ever done.”

The house at 90 Meadowcliffe Dr. is easy to miss if you’re driving. It hides below the curve of the road as it climbs down from Kingston Road through the hills that end at the lake’s edge. The house perches on the slope of the Cudia Park ravine, nestling into a section of wooded privacy rare even in a city full of ravines.

“This feels like Muskoka in the city,” Ms. Opper said. “When the leaves are in you see nothing, you’re in a forest.”

According to Ms. Opper, even the engineers she had in to help shore up her property after major storms washed away part of the grounds were full of compliments: “They said this is the best ravine property they’ve ever seen.”

The house today

A long driveway (good for about six cars) switches back from Meadowcliffe leading to the house.

From the drive, you can see the land drop away so that what looks like a one-storey bungalow is revealed as a two-storey mid-century modern structure with walls of windows facing the ravine.

There are three ways to access the home from the drive: through the garage via a glassed-in breezeway (a later addition by a previous owner); down the terraced steps to the lower-level patio or over a timber bridge that spans a stone-filled waterfall feature.

A pergola angles across this face of the house, providing partial cover from the sun between the second-floor deck straight across to the garage, providing shade for indoor and outdoor spaces along the way.

The contemporary foyer opens to the kitchen on the left, on the window side of the house, and to a cedar-lined hallway on the right leading to living spaces and stairs to the lower level. The ceiling vaults up to the roofline, with large windows above the doorways to pour light into this side of the house.

The kitchen has an eat-in area next to a large plate of glass looking onto the bridge and waterfall. The kitchen work spaces are a true triangle, with a large Thermador range facing the windows, with sink behind it on an island. Cabinetry, fridge and wall-mounted ovens (also Thermador) form the back two sides of the triangle with a server and bar sink at the edge of the transition into the dining/living room. There are pass-throughs to the hallway and dining room to keep the space open and unsegregated, and there’s also an exit to the deck, which runs the length of the house.

The upper level has a large open living space that the front hallway and kitchen both open into. Two-thirds of the way down is a fireplace on exterior wall that provides a separation to a sitting area (also panelled in cedar). On the side of the house that wedges into the slope are doors to the two upper-level bedrooms, which have more mid-century features like floor-to-ceiling windows in the corners that bring the outside in without sacrificing privacy.

The lower level has more of Ms. Opper’s personal stamp. She replaced the stairs leading down with a dramatic open steel and limestone structure and the underfloor heating on this level keeps it cozy. A large tiled space in the middle leads to an exercise room/yoga studio and as you follow the wall of windows past the fireplace is a den and media-watching space with light wood built-ins.

Off the TV room is the door to the third bedroom, the at-grade bedroom looks out onto the side yard, the largest piece of flat greenspace on the property. The only neighbours you’re likely to see out these windows are deer.

“We get a lot of wildlife here, there are herds of deer coming through … I had some yesterday morning, two of them were staring back at me,” said Ms. Opper, who has a collection of deer photos on her phone. She recommends keeping extra plant matter in the garden as a buffet for peckish deer.

Through sliding doors there’s a large stone patio that extends to the new (2022) retaining wall, and runs along the back of the house, perfect for entertaining friends and family.

The new wing

Open this photo in gallery:

Extending the house over the waterfall to the garage created two new indoor-outdoor spaces that Ms. Opper makes the most use of. A courtyard where the water feature starts now nestles between the glass hallway and the slope of the ravine, and on the opposite side facing the driveway is an all-glass room that Ms. Opper uses as an office and studio.

Ms. Opper started her career in the art department of popular magazines such as Saturday Night (at the time Canada’s oldest general interest magazine, before its closure in 2005), and Quest Magazine, edited by Michael Enright, better known as a long-time CBC Radio host. She worked as an art director with Pearson Publishing and through several mergers at Penguin Canada. “One of my favourite persons to work with was Stuart Maclean we had quite a good relationship, I really liked working on his covers,” she said.

She retired about 10 years ago and took up painting, and through the last few decades she’s spent many hours in the bright space sandwiched between nature and architecture, experiencing all the seasons and their unique joys.

And no, she doesn’t have a favourite. Sure, spring’s green’s are vivid and fall’s colours are a riot. Even winter has its own when the leaves drop and clear the sightlines to the lake: “I get magnificent sunrises in the winter, the whole sky goes orange.”