1443 Mildred St - SOLD

The Essentials

A five-bedroom Century farmhouse on over half an acre just ten minutes from the downtown core and west end strip. An in-ground pool and high-ceilinged formal rooms. An estate, in other words. A place to make your own history.

The Bigger Picture

There is something both refined and wild about 1443 Mildred St., as if banks of lilac parted only this morning and before that, for just over a century, the property evolved entirely unchecked by tastemakers and referees. There is the real sense that it was somehow allowed to develop its own particular style, and to make its free-spirited way in the world.

It strikes us as a house of perfect contradictions. A home well-brought-up and yet also raised without the slightest pretension. More down-home farmhouse than up-tight manor house.  The back porch would have been the front porch when it was built; the world has changed that much. The land around sold off and new roads dragged through the back fields.

The stiff and perfect black fence around the in-ground pool speaks to some sort of formal rigour. A David Hockney painting come shimmering to life. Broad bands of blue water and green hedge. A light confetti of turned-early leaves on the water’s surface.

But the edges of the lawns are allowed to run a little unkempt, like a schoolboy who’s pulled on a crooked tie in an attempt to please his grandparents when they visit on a Sunday. His cheeky smile giving him away. 

There are banks of long-necked echinacea running riot beyond the big trees, crowds of them with their heads lolling in summer shade. They’ve had too much to drink, or not quite enough. You might sit on the full-width porch, we’d suggest, and give them all names. Or watch as the kids swing on hammocks suspended from the willow, telling each other stories, and inventing monsters. It’s Narnia reimagined just a five-minute drive from Farm Boy.

More plainly, it is a sprawling, entirely decadent two-and-a-half storey red-brick home on over half an acre about ten minutes from downtown Kingston, and the same from the west-end shops. High-ceilinged formal rooms full of fine art and good books. The salvaged rib and spine bones of northern whales are strewn about like furnishings ripped out of a Mervyn Peake novel. A gas fireplace and country kitchen. Laundry tucked away beyond the yoga mat. An enclosed side porch with the family’s wellington boots lined up below the raincoats. A gravel drive with the grass poking through, and the loft up top like the penthouse suite in some country bed and breakfast. A real getaway in the city.

Call us and we’ll regale you with more details, anything you can’t find on the realtor.ca version of things.

The iGuide Tour, with Photos and Floor Plans

The Map