The round front door was dubbed “Moongate” in the architectural drawings.Stallone Media
The house announces itself rather demurely by twin fieldstone posts capped by coach lamp-style fixtures. There is nothing past the gate but trees. A forest.
As you navigate the little twists and turns, you wonder why the architect pushed his work so far into the dense lot. With almost 13 hectares to play with, it seems an odd choice. And then the house swings into view, and you gasp. Because he must place it there, you think; there’s no other place this house could exist.
Partially buried into a berm and rising, gently, out of it is the 5,000-square-foot house that Grant Whatmough (1921-1999) designed for E.M. Saunders in 1961 near King City, Ont.’s Happy Valley. Roof angles zoom off in various directions and clerestory windows hint at the delights to be found inside. Landscaping by J. Austin Floyd (1910-1981), an artful assemblage of rocks, shrubs and trees, combine with Mr. Whatmough’s chunky fieldstone walls to temper the composition, to keep it in line with organic principles established by Frank Lloyd Wright.
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Except for that circular front door. What a doozy! Called “Moongate” on the architectural drawings, it was penned by architect Herbert Gardiner Cowan in 1963. It makes a unique statement. Mr. Cowan is thought to have attended Taliesin, Mr. Wright’s Wisconsin home, studio and school.
But open that door, if you will. Likely, you’ll meet Sarah Kavoosi in the foyer, since she is with Re/Max Hallmark York Group Realty, and is offering the house for sale, priced at $8.8-million.
“In my previous life, I was a landscape architect,” she told me. She describes the house as “eco-friendly.”
“You can see part of it is in the earth,” she said. The architect was “taking advantage of the energy of the land, [and] not only for the view.”
You’ll want to skip the nanny’s quarters, which are down a hall to the right, and trot directly to the lower living room, which connects to an office (with a stunning view) and a family room (with an equally stunning view). And because Ms. Kavoosi understands the power of masterful modernist architecture, she might skip taking you further down the hall to the primary bedroom, to present the pièce de resistance.
“This house doesn’t have first floor, second floor – none of that.” She makes a beeline for the terrazzo stairs that carry you up.
Bam. Another set of chevron-shaped stairs guides the eye upward to land on gracefully arching glue-lam beams holding up a warm wooden ceiling. Below the beams is a half-circle fireplace set into a terrazzo inglenook. Behind a little door on the wall is a conveyor belt – much like the one at the Beer Store – that rolls firewood directly into the area. The beams and fieldstone walls (which thicken as they rise) effortlessly glide past the floor-to-ceiling windows to blur the lines between indoors and out, as all good modernism does. Accessed by narrow, Wright-style openings on both sides of the fireplace, there is another family room with the fireplace’s twin, followed by two bedrooms.
Walk the other way and you’ll pass a dining table before finding a renovated kitchen and a few more bedrooms. And because it’s fun to switch between levels in this domestic labyrinth, feel free to trot back down to check out the primary bedroom. Naturally, it’s large enough for a pair of armchairs and is connected to a bonus room where yoga or tai chi might take place … when it’s too cold to do those things on the huge deck, that is.
Beyond the deck, one might notice there’s a massive coach house on the property and, in the distance, a pond. Should one take a verdant walk to gaze upon the water, one will find a clearing with a stage and a tipi.
As reported in this space in 2021, information on Mr. Whatmough’s history, unlike some Canadian architects, does exist. After serving in the RCAF’s Eastern Command (Canada) during the Second World War, Mr. Whatmough moved to England and found employment as a naval architect at Portsmouth’s Vosper & Co. While there, he came up with a design for a jet-powered hydroplane, Bluebird II, that would, years later, set a world record.
Before returning to Canada in 1948, he would serve on the design council for the Festival of Britain. According to a short biography by ERA Architects, “from 1953 onward, Whatmough worked independently as an architect in Ontario. His focus was on suburban and estate homes, though he also completed a number of commercial projects. Not satisfied with established building contractors, Whatmough also founded a small construction company to execute his commissions.”
Less is known about his client, Edward M. Saunders, however. I found a tantalizing obituary in the Toronto Daily Star on Jan. 27, 1970 that could be him. D.H. Fullerton pays tribute to E.M. (Ted) Saunders, “one of the best-known personalities in the Toronto investment world” who made his fortune trading bonds after the Second World War. The author describes him as kind, generous and with “good humour during the dark days” who believed in the “healing virtues of a Shangri-La in the country.” In addition, The Globe’s society pages of the 1950s and 60s often mention a “Mrs. E.M. Saunders” as host of many a Toronto Symphony fundraiser at her home at 53 Summerhill Ave.
4235 17th Sideroad in King City, Ont., is certainly a Shangri-La, if a mostly original, sublimely crafted, organic, open-plan, modernist masterwork is your thing. Come see it before a Hollywood celebrity snaps it up.
For more information, visit workofarton32acres.com.