The Graham Smith House

Modern lines made warm and inviting; Architect Graham Smith's contemporary house is full of the relaxing fragrance of wood and the radiance of blonde brick
19 October 2007
The Globe and Mail

The making of a perfect house can take a long time, as nobody needs to remind Toronto designer Graham Smith: He's been at it for almost 10 years.
The story of Mr. Smith's beautiful residence began in 1998, when this partner in Altius Architecture and his wife, Dinah Hampson, bought a vacant lot above Wendigo Creek, on the west side of High Park. Situated on a steep slope of sandy ravine, the 105-foot-wide site had long been considered impossible to build on. Before doing anything else, Mr. Smith had to prepare the spot, first, by scooping out a deep recess in the hillside to hold his building, then nailing down the dirt with long pins and otherwise bracing the excavation with concrete.
Next came the raising of the house's basic structure: a 4,300-square-foot, five-level stack of oblong boxes defined by steel girders and set into the hill, turned so that the building's long axis is parallel to the street. At the bottom is a 1,000-square-foot garage for four cars. On top and off the principal storeys are nearly 1,500 square feet of terrace.
The general aesthetic of the structure, now almost complete, is modernist in feel and style, with the clean lines and simplicity of the best of such design. With a clear span made possible by the steel-frame construction, glassed in on two sides and with a wide deck sweeping around its east and south sides, the principal level offers an uncluttered setting for cooking, dining, relaxing around the fireplace, and the kind of large-scale entertaining the family likes to do.
Below is a spacious family room, and, above, are the ample sleeping quarters for Mr. Smith and Ms. Hampson, and for their two daughters, 5 and 8, who have arrived since construction began.
The interior is notably quiet: Warming and cooling is accomplished by geothermal heat pumps, connected to some 1,600 feet of pipe sunk into the hillside.
But if Mr. Smith has approached his project with a modernist sensibility, he has also brought to it a warmth often missing from such houses.
Much loveliness in the structure comes from the fragrance, texture and warm natural colour of the wooden beams and window surrounds, from the soft darkness of the mahogany panelling used throughout, and the light-yellow radiance of large blonde bricks.
Since my first visit to the house three years ago, Mr. Smith has considerably enhanced the comfort and livability of the interior.
The four bathrooms have been finished, and cabinetry and closets have been installed throughout. (When I dropped by in 2004, Mr. Smith and Ms. Hampson were still hanging their clothes on a wire stretched across the master bedroom.)
The most attractive finishing touch, however, is the 1,200-square-foot deck garden, planted earlier this year by landscape designer Terry McGlade. Perched atop the building, with lovely views of High Park's treetops, this patch of robust nature in the city features the colours of our Ontario autumn, from the blue of asters to the sombre brown of tall grasses.
Because such green roofs are now in vogue, it's probably worthwhile pausing a moment on this garden.
The basic substructure is ordinary wooden decking. On this surface, Mr. Smith poured a liquid tar-like substance to provide waterproofing. Next came a layer of six-inch Styrofoam insulation, and, on top of that, a layer of cloth-meshed plastic and a thick sheet of black plastic to act as a root barrier. The next level was felt fabric, then an expanse of gravel-filled plastic containers shaped like egg cartons, then a layer of filter cloth. Finally, on top of this elaborate sandwich of materials, came the soil – ordinary potting soil – laid down six to eight inches deep.
As Mr. Smith explained to me, it would take a much larger green roof to affect local temperatures. But even at just 1,200 square feet, the garden has a definite impact on its immediate environment. It saves water by storing rain in its multilayered underpinnings: The precipitation that falls on the roof stays on the roof. And the sturdy insulated infrastructure of the garden effectively prevents solar radiation from heating up the interior of the house. From whatever perspective it's viewed – environmental or just aesthetic – this roof-top garden is a successful addition to a superb modern house that, in every sense, works.