Sebastien Petrescu/Sebastien Petrescu
93 Salisbury Ave, Cambridge, Ont.
Ask for a price: $3.5 million
Taxes: $18,414.75 (2022)
Lot size: 140 by 207 feet
Officers: Ginger Whitney, Colleen Whitney, Whitney & Co. Realty Ltd.
The backstory
One of the charms of owning a home with over a century of history behind it is the act of discovery as you encounter layers added by generations of owners.
That’s how Dr. Gerald Achtymichuk felt when he stumbled upon 93 Salisbury Avenue over 35 years ago. For him, there was a lot to love about the grand, rambling Tudor Revival home built before World War I in the historic town of Galt, Ontario (now part of Cambridge). He had started his medical practice in town and decided he was going to put down roots, and 93 Salisbury was a short walk from his office.
“This one happened by chance and when I walked through the front door it had a real presence,” he said, and so he bought it. Shortly after his marriage, his new wife Carol Ann’s impression of the “presence” of the house was a little different.
“I walked in and all I could see was yellow,” she said. This boldly grungy 1970s marigold yellow was on a shag carpet (soaked with years of cigarette smoke for a particular aroma), and a similar shade of yellow carried over the walls and even up to the ceilings. It was still the 1980s, but that harvest yellow color scheme was already quite old. Much of the original millwork and dark brown mahogany was still in the house, but it blended uncomfortably with that garish yellow.
It’s safe to say that what’s inside is a dramatic change as the couple have restored the interior to match the grandeur of the exterior, a project that has continued until today with their most recent renovation project which was completed last year.
The house today
If this home’s orange brick and white trim look familiar — especially the grand porte-cochere in the main entrance — it’s possible you were one of the many who watched Netflix. Queen’s Gambit at the start of the lockdowns. The house replaced an English country mansion for a nighttime scene in this chess drama, not least because the landscaping, semi-circular driveway, and plot proportions don’t feel urban.
The house is oriented around a central stairwell, so it was the first project the couple tackled. The yellow had to go and was replaced with hand painted wallpaper from France hung by a master hanger. The pattern is mostly green vines and light cream with soft colors in the flowers blooming on it.
“The scale of this wallpaper calls for a big house with high ceilings,” said Ms. Achtymichuk, who used the pattern as a palette as they did for the rest of the house. “Every room in the house has colors from the wallpaper, that was our starting point, we find them very soothing and very soothing.”
Beneath the shag carpeting were gorgeous original oak parquet floors that have been restored throughout the house, and the couple used Persian rugs to define the spaces. Where there is carpet in the stairwells, it is the same green as the vines.
On the right are three seating areas: a den with a bay window and exit to the covered side porch, and a formal living room with an ornate wood fireplace salvaged from a Montreal estate sale (replacing a vintage slab 1970s).
To the left of the main hall is a paneled dining room with another bay window that can access the kitchen through a butler’s pantry. The kitchen is also accessed from a small hallway off the main staircase (via a servant’s stairwell on the second level) and a second small hallway from a veranda behind the main staircase where the couple ate. tendency to eat breakfast.
The kitchen is equipped with modern stainless steel appliances (double refrigerator, double ovens in butler’s pantry, six-burner stove) and is centered by a large island with sink and bar area. Unlike some of the mega open-space kitchen-living-dining combos popular today, this space retains its separate, modest-scale but functional Edwardian feel. Behind the kitchen and pantry is a stairwell leading to a second-floor attic bedroom (one of seven bedrooms in the house) with a full bathroom which, in its original format, was certainly the accommodation of the servants. This hallway also connects to the two-car garage and a small back porch with a barbecue and access to the pool deck.
The basement is quite high and for a house of that era, and had original hardwood when they bought it (a neighbor and former resident said the kids would use the enormous length of the space as a shooting range for their BB guns). Now it’s a games room and TV room with another fireplace and a large gym in a separate room.
On the second level is the master bedroom, this is the most recently completed room as the couple have prioritized updating the children’s bedrooms over the years before arriving at theirs. The master suite is to the left of the second level grand staircase entry hall and features wallpaper with an orange picked up from the central hall wallpaper, but with metallic gold embellishments. An adjoining jack-and-jill bathroom with stand-alone shower connects to another bedroom, but which could easily be converted into a full walk-in closet more in keeping with modern “retreat” style master suites.
Across the hall from the master bedroom is a library/office where the good doctor stores some of his medical books in built-in cabinets that originally locked gun cases. This gun room can be a little larger than the master bedroom, and the same jack-and-jill step-in bathroom connects it to a third bedroom on this level.
The third level features three more bedrooms, all with slightly different layouts to accommodate the house’s turrets and gables. The largest of the three has two separate seating areas, and the other two are smaller but more colorful with their own floral wallpaper. There’s a generous spa-style bathroom on this floor with a deep soaking tub but no shower in blue and white toile-style wallpaper, and the smallest of the bedrooms has private access to this too.
The grounds
The house’s Tudor style and expansive grounds create an impressive profile in the neighborhood.Sebastien Petrescu/Sebastien Petrescu
The land is huge and future owners will hopefully enjoy gardening like Dr. Achtymichuk or don’t hesitate to hire a gardener.
“I don’t like gardening,” says Ms. Achtymichuk, who has reluctantly got used to it over the years. “One of the very first things he ever bought me, when I was eight months pregnant: ‘Here’s a nice self-propelled lawn mower.’ Achtymichuk said: ‘My poor pregnant wife was cutting the grass .”
The combination of grounds and Tudor style – complete with white wood trim and brickwork – gives an impressive profile in a neighborhood that is already full of historic architectural sites. “A lot of people are stopping, we had tourist buses stop and take pictures,” Ms Achtymichuk said.
“We were asked to do a walking tour of the house over Christmas. … But they come right into the house and walk around,” which is not the doctor’s cup of tea. intimacy of this place that really attracted me.”
Who knows, maybe the next owner will feel differently about opening the doors to looky-loos and Netflix tourists.
#grand #house #beautifully #restored