When Trevor Speis first returned to Toronto in 2019 after four years in Sydney, Australia, he knew that he wanted to put his stamp on the city. A partner in both the Annex Hotel and The Good Son restaurant, the financier had long been invested in his hometown, but this was different. If he was going to abandon the white sands of Bondi Beach for the white winters of his youth, he needed to put down some roots. He needed to build a home.
Conveniently, he knew exactly where he wanted that to be. “I’ve always thought that Palmerston Avenue is one of the nicest strips in all of downtown,” he says. “It’s proximity to everything you need, including Trinity Bellwoods Park, which I love, is amazing. I’ve just always been drawn to it.”
For two years, Speis bid on properties as they popped up on the street, eventually closing on a 1500-square-foot brick three-storey with both a lot of history and potential.
Speis was immediately taken with the huge front doors that were first used to accommodate horses when it was a carriage house in the 1860s and then later large commercial delivery trucks. “It’s not the fanciest looking, but it’s one of the houses that definitely catches your eye. When I got inside and saw the raw elements: the exposed beams and different elevations, I was like, ‘I’m going to double down on this and really explore what it could become.’”
Around that time, COVID shut the world down and Speis found himself with nothing but time on his hands. He spent months looking for design inspiration, researching zoning and construction codes and contemplating building materials. He even taught himself how to draft the project’s technical drawings. The only thing he didn’t do was hire a designer.
“I feel that when you go with an architect or a designer, they bring a certain brush stroke to their work that’s undeniable and you end up catering to them,” explains Speis. “The magic of design to me is coming into a space and seeing it completely different than anyone else would see. That’s what makes it unique. Because I designed it, there were things both big and small that I got to do that make it undeniably connected to me.”
In the process, Speis extended the structure back 32 feet with 22-foot ceilings and installed both floor-to-ceiling windows and skylights that track the sun’s journey across the sky throughout the day. To capture the relaxing beach-meets-boutique-spa esthetic he was going for, he poured heated polished concrete floors and went with off-white micro-cement walls (he hates drywall) that add texture and work effortlessly with the oak ceilings and balconies, which he leaned into heavily after discovering that adding balconies — yes, balconies — doesn’t technically add to a space’s livable square footage (and exceed added-square-footage limits).
Looking up from the living room, a clean sightline to the balcony reveals a masterfully curated bookshelf. “In my opinion, it’s the best bookshelf in Toronto,” says Speis, laughing. “I wanted to do curved edges to make it stand out, because everything else in the space has very straight lines. Not only do you have an incredible view of the city from there, it’s home to all of the stuff I’ve found all over the world over the years, all the things that are really important to me.”
The home’s piece de resistance is undoubtedly the sunken living room. “In the 70s, they always had the coolest sunken living rooms and couches and every time I would see those photos, I’d be like, ‘Damn, I wish I had lived in that time! Now I do.”
A magnet for guests, the living room seats up to 12 people and perfectly represents Speis’s true desire in its design.
“Honestly, I want people to come here and feel like they can stay,” he says, pointing at the large three-sided sectional couch he commissioned from Style Garage and a bunch of surf, photography and architecture books. “Ultimately, I built this place around my time in Sydney and Los Angeles and want to share that with my friends. This place is my fingerprint. It may not be talked about outside of the city, but the right person is going to come in and be like, “Ah, I totally understand it,” and to me that’s cool.”
Each of the bookshelves have a theme (music, fashion, architecture/design and miscellaneous) and contain items relevant to it. He has numerous books by the late designer Virgil Abloh: “I like him, because he taught me to look at perfectionism differently. We shouldn’t get caught up on one thing, but rather do as much as we can, so that our output is high.”
Speis was a hip hop producer and DJ between the ages of 15-22, music has long played a big part of Speis’ life. While His turntables live upstairs on the balcony, and he has been known to come out of retirement on occasion, setting them up in the living room when a house party calls for it.
In his upstairs office, Speis decided to let the home’s existing brick wall be the focal point, accentuating it with a number of unique pieces of art, collected from his travels.
“The previous owners actually designed it,” offers Speis about the kitchen he chose not to renovate. “I feel that they did a great job taking advantage of what was once storage for carriages and horses, turning it into a clean, bright open-concept space that runs the cupboards high up the original brick wall.”
