12 REDAN ST - SOLD!
The Essentials
A beautifully renovated open-plan three-bedroom, two-bathroom, semi-detached home steps north of McBurney Park on one of the neighbourhood’s most desirable streets.
The Bigger Picture
I’ve known for at least a couple of years that it was likely I’d be asked to list 12 Redan St. And that isn’t the rarest of situations. I’ll often put an address at the bottom of a whiteboard at the office, and watch it slowly rise towards an eventual meeting with its own listing date. Some houses write their bylines more quickly than others. But it’s very unusual for me to watch that rise, like a bubble of air through water, with such anticipation.
12 Redan strikes me as a special sort of house. Unusually pretty, for one thing. That midnight siding like a charred Japanese cypress, like a nod to Kubrick harvested from that soft hillside behind the park’s old burial ground and its new slides. It is both bracingly modern (all those Marvin windows, the steel support beam) and pleasingly traditional. Open-plan but still warm. Bright, but with strategically placed shadows to take the glare off a new book. A main floor perfectly organized around a kitchen all butcher block and stamped tin (assembled by local legend, Tim Soper). There is a minimalist gas stove warming the corner between the living room window and the front door. It has the feel of a sentry, a guard against the cold. Nothing will get in the way of 12 Redan offering a warm greeting.
The sitting/dining room at the back of the house is a modern addition, an engineered gallery held aloft by light from the garden (as well as bird song, if you crack the windows) and serene views over the rough-cut stone path that winds to the back shed and divides the lawn, the perennial beds, north from south.
A year ago the city subsidized the installation of a top-notch heat pump and new furnace, so the HVAC specs are top-notch here, and the monthly utilities average $315, which hits as low-ish but not remarkable, until you realize the Prius is getting plugged in most nights too.
The upper bathroom was re-done last year with hexagonal tile and a long-legged chrome sink. The softwood floors are beautifully refinished and reflect that this much-polished house sits comfortably alongside its own past, like a couple holding hands.
The Gallery
The Floor Plans
The Map
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