Lytton Park Ravine Residence

This spectacular ravine site in Lytton Park had a complex and unresolved architectural pedigree. The original residence, a compact 1940s stone cottage, received an ambitious but compromised modernist addition in the 1970s. 

ERA was asked to stitch the two eras and architectures together into a more cohesive whole. ERA’s custom residential studio excelled at finding opportunities in the plan geometries to not only improve circulation, flow, and function, but also to radically reorient the architecture, its views, and its inhabitant uses toward the ravine. 

 ERA’s approach was to maximize views from the principal living spaces into the deep ravine lot with expansive new picture windows and craft a suitable, transitional architectural language that would bridge the divergent aesthetics. The result is a house that maintains its traditional, vernacular character, especially when viewed from the street but feels organically nestled into its wooded landscape. An additional storey was added onto the east 1970s portion containing the bedrooms. Three individually scaled mid-century styled fireplaces on each floor (basement lounge, ground floor living room, and second-floor principal bedroom) are anchored on the exterior by a monumental stone chimney terminating the prow-shaped eastern end.