Not everyone can say their home has starred in a film. But multimedia artist Sook-Yin Lee’s late-19th-century row house in Toronto’s Kensington Market has been a recurring character on screen — five times to be exact.
The filmmaker, musician, actor and former MuchMusic VJ has never shied away from weaving her personal life into her work. Most notably, her home is the backdrop in ”Paying For It” (2024), the Canadian Screen Award — winning film she co-wrote and directed, based on her real-life relationship with her former partner, cartoonist Chester Brown, which was adapted from his bestselling 2011 graphic memoir.
“As an artist, you work with what you have,” says Lee, who chose to film in her home to save on the budget. Plus, “this is where the real-life events occurred.”
When the film’s cinematographer, Gayle Ye, first stepped inside the eclectic 11-foot-wide house, with its painted-diamond wood floors and bright orange kitchen walls, “she looked around and said, ‘Oh my god, it’s amazing to see that people can still live like this,’” recalls Lee. “I didn’t know if it was a compliment or an insult. I think she meant it nicely,” she says with a laugh.
Lee knows her home is not everyone’s cup of tea, but for more than 20 years, it has been her refuge, which she now shares with her creative partner, musician Dylan Gamble. The 900-square-foot space is “jam-packed” (her words!) with vintage furniture foraged from dumpsters, beloved paintings from her artist friends, film posters from projects she’s directed and starred in and treasured keepsakes gathered from her travels and from her late partner, musician Adam Litovitz.
“It’s kind of like a clubhouse,” says Lee of her bohemian abode. “It’s extremely humble and very beautiful. It’s a magical place. I love it. It’s not a mansion by any means, but I prefer living here than in one.”
The love affair with her quirky row house began in the early 2000s, when a 20-something Lee was working at MuchMusic and living in an apartment on John Street. She was going through a breakup and was ready for a change. One day, she was flipping through the personal ads in Now Magazine and came across this house on a street she’d never heard of in Kensington Market for really cheap. “Like most things in my life, it was happenstance,” says Lee.
Lee went to see the house and noticed that people were walking in and out without even touring the home. Once she went inside, she knew why: “It looked like somebody had smeared the walls with poo brown on top of vomit green,” she says. Plus, there was an oddly placed partition wall in the middle of the front room.
But Lee felt an immediate connection: It looked exactly like the row house where she had lived as a child in Vancouver. “That was such a beautiful place to me. So, when I saw it, I was like, ‘Easy. A new coat of paint, take down the wall. It’s an easy fix,” she says. “And … I had enough to put a down payment on a ridiculously low-cost house.”
She removed the weird wall, covered up the questionable paint job with a neutral, earthy colour (and added a pop of burnt orange in the kitchen), and last summer, refreshed the hand-painted diagonal pattern on the wood floors. Modest changes, considering the home’s long history.
“I love to find and scavenge beautiful things that people have discarded, not seeing their value,” says Lee. That instinct mirrors her relationship with the house itself — a place others overlooked, but one she transformed into a deeply lived-in sanctuary.
There are many kinks that come with living in a home built in the 1800s. A cold draft slips through the kitchen cupboards, and the back door screen has been carefully hand mended. She calls the result “a patchwork of fixes.” Lee says: “I oftentimes compare it to an old vintage guitar. This one has creaks, holes and cracks, but it breathes.”
That sense of living history extends beyond the walls. The home has a rich past of people and artists who occupied the space before Lee. Among them: Stewart and Patricia Scriver, the original owners of Kensington Market’s iconic vintage shop Courage My Love and guitarist Jason Collett of indie rock band Broken Social Scene.
But the home’s value isn’t just in its storied history — it’s in its community of neighbours. “I’m surrounded by wonderful people,” she says. “We all kind of take care of one another and put up with each other’s quirks.” (They never seem to mind when Lee rehearses — loudly — with her band.)
When asked if she sees herself in this home forever, she pauses.
“As much as I love my home, I must remind myself all the time that it is a shell. And like death, you’re gonna have to leave it at one point,” she says. “I sit here, and I do a lot of work here, and I also love hanging out here, and I have my rituals. But at the same time, I should always be ready to walk away from here, too.”
And yet, despite its impermanence, the home continues to anchor her. “It’s offered me a temple, a space in which to feel safe and live. Whenever I travel or walk through the city, I always breathe a sigh of relief when I return to Kensington Market.”
Isn’t that what coming home is all about?
