John Bentley Mays

Georgian, clean and fresh and definitive

JOHN BENTLEY MAYS

From Friday's Globe and Mail

April 4, 2008 at 12:00 AM EDT

At least at the top end of the new-house market, the Georgian style is enjoying a vogue not seen in Toronto since the city was young, in the real Georgian period. This is not exactly what I would like to have seen in the early years of the 21st century - contemporary tycoons lining up to buy old architecture, when so much excellent contemporary design is available. But there we are: Toronto's wealthiest people love the fustian and reassurance of historical styles, and are willing to pay millions of dollars to get them.

J.F. Brennan is one of our town's most conspicuous suppliers of period-style mansions and apartments (especially Georgian) for those rich enough to afford them. In a busy career spanning more than 30 years, he has created some 350 custom homes, including many of the Georgians now presenting their stately faces to streets in Toronto's deluxe neighbourhoods.
But not all his products are one-off houses. On Bayview Avenue, in one of the city's most posh areas, Mr. Brennan is making a condominium and park complex that combines high-density luxury dwelling with the traditionalist design gestures (somewhat modified here) for which he is famous.

This large residential project, produced by Cresford Developments and slated to go up on a site once owned by the Salvation Army, features 17 condominium townhouses arcing around three buildings enclosing 67 units.

The apartments are large - 1,500 to 3,000 square feet - and priced accordingly, from $1.2-million to about $4-million. The complex will abut a 2 and 1/2-acre park graced by huge old beech trees salvaged from the site of the condominium buildings.

Renderings show these structures to be essentially conventional four-storey apartment blocks spread gracefully across the property, and distinguished by a pleasantly sculpted facade. In the two largest structures, ornamented brick volumes stand at the corners, recalling a streetscape of Georgian townhouses and framing plainer, recessed limestone facings.

The resulting image is a mingle of historical elements drawn from Georgian models with a more stripped-down, more modern classicism. These two buildings are joined by an entry pavilion in the shape of an orangery, with a spacious, light-filled interior decorated by the well-known Toronto designer Brian Gluckstein.

I talked with Mr. Brennan about the Bayview project, and his design philosophy here and elsewhere, in the dignified, high-ceilinged library of his Yonge Street apartment.
"It's in a very bucolic setting," he said of the site of his condominium complex. "I just can't do a huge Georgian thing here. [The exterior] needs to be more in keeping with the townhouses. So there is this very clean, very simple stone facade which is punched with balconies that go out and balconies that go in.

"I love the integration [of old and new] in old Georgian cities like Boston and Philadelphia. I love that freshening up. I am not trying to make a really strong Georgian statement here. All I want is that the pieces be perfect for what they are - not another pseudo-Georgian condo development."
So what is genuine Georgian?

"It's an easy style to make perfect, if you're interested in knowing the rules. The rules are about proportion and scale and detail - about the iron work and about building a balcony that cantilevers out, making iron pieces that really support and aren't gimmicky things pasted on. The proportion of every detail is really important to us."

For Mr. Brennan, the appeal of this style to his clients is not complicated. "It's clean and fresh and definitive - mathematically perfect, pure in its rigidity - yet it has warmth to it that is different with every building. If you take a really great Georgian house in Rosedale, the whole thing has a sense of welcome. You go through a portico and great Georgian doors, and you know you've walked into something really great. The subconscious says: 'This feels really good. It's like a woman in a black dress and pearls.' What's so good about it? It's so simple, so elegant, and it says you know the rules. That's what a building has to be: perfect."

Mr. Brennan is unsparing of period architecture that is imperfect, or that embodies empty merchandising of a certain look without the beef of solid architectural design. It's replying to the desire for a Georgian house with what he calls "the Ralph Lauren answer" - "It looks like a stately English home where you can ride your horse around. That's a marketing image."

But does Georgian design even at its best merely confer an instant pedigree, a kind of respectability, and connotations of an elegant lifestyle, as a Ralph Lauren outfit does?
"That's what contemporary architecture does, too," Mr. Brennan said. "If you're going to build a contemporary house, you're buying the pedigree of a contemporary house because you're aspiring to something that everyone else doesn't understand.

"People who want Georgian don't like the contemporary style. You choose the style because you like it better and - this is the clincher - because it makes you feel better. Everyone is looking for pedigree. We are all looking for satisfaction."

Mr. Brennan has completed a remarkably large number of houses. But does he have a dream project? "The next project. Always."