Soaring ceilings, modern finishes and two entirely glass walls characterize a custom-built home in Cedarvale listed for $2.3 million.
But the detached house at 561 Arlington Ave. has been on the market for more than two years, and it was originally priced at $3.6 million, according to the listing history on online real estate listing platform HouseSigma. After multiple attempts to sell it at different price points, the owner listed it at a new price, again, in May.
Have glass walls, a contemporary architecture trend seen in biophilic design, had their heyday?
Experts say designers and homeowners have been incorporating more glass into houses since the 1990s, but it’s really in the last decade that the glass wall design style has picked up steam. Still, realtors told the Star it remains a niche interest in Toronto, especially given how cold the winters can be.
“It’s still, in a way, a novelty,” said Sotheby’s International Realty Canada broker Bosko Scecpanovic.
Is there a market for glass houses in Toronto?
The luxury home on Arlington Avenue includes a chef’s kitchen on the open-concept main floor, three bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a finished basement. Outside, dark brick colours the sides of the house. There’s also a private driveway, but no garage.
The glass walls differ somewhat from each other: the front wall is frosted, allowing natural light to flow in without revealing details of the home’s interior; and the back wall is transparent, providing a clear view of the ravine — as well as the living room from the backyard.
To Toronto realtor Kylie Walters, the time the house has spent on the market signals it’s been priced too high, that the desire for a glass house is “super niche,” or both.
The agent for the listing didn’t respond to the Star’s request for comment.
“I haven’t come across many glass houses, nor have I heard of buyers looking for them specifically,” Walters said.
Real estate agent Othneil Litchmore said he, too, has never worked with a buyer who wanted one. “I think it’s something that’s considered a luxury finish, as opposed to something an average buyer would look for,” he added.
Scecpanovic, who works with a luxury real estate firm, said he began to notice the trend in the 1990s, with some people replacing back walls with sliding glass doors or converting solariums into year-round spaces with more modern glass materials. He’s selling a Toronto home now with several floor-to-ceiling windows listed for about $9 million, but he said he also sees glass elements in homes listed for $2 million to $3 million.
Biophilic design, which aims to connect people with the natural environment, is “extremely popular” nowadays, Scecpanovic said, and its principles include connecting the indoors with the outdoors.
Ultimately, though, Scecpanovic said most homebuyers settle on more traditional builds.
“People say they want different things … but in the end, they always end up in the same-looking brick house like everybody else,” he said.
Joel Tanner, CEO and creative director at smpl Design Studio, which designs large-scale renovations, new homes and cottages, said he’s seen a trend over the last 10 years of clients wanting more glass incorporated into their custom homes for “indoor-outdoor connectivity.” While he said the market has been affected by high borrowing costs and increasing unemployment, he doesn’t believe it’s strictly luxury clients driving the push for more glass.
“We work on projects with budgets of $500,000 up to $5 million, and I would say that it really doesn’t matter what project we’re working on; we’re always trying to maximize the amount of glass and the connectivity from indoor to outdoor spaces,” Tanner said.
Glass houses bring the outdoors in, but are less energy efficient
While glass homes can provide natural light and scenic views, insulation, or the lack of it, is a significant factor in cost and comfort.
Adam Molson, vice-president of sustainability at real estate development firm The Daniels Corporation, said although some glass walls are designed to be more insular, even the best-insulated glass walls typically won’t provide the same energy efficiency that a more traditional build would.
“In general, glass is never going to be as thermally well-performing as a solid, insulated wall,” he said.
That means getting to a comfortable temperature will require more cooling in the summer and heating in the winter.
Tanner, however, said using the right materials is key and added that glass allows for natural light infiltration, and therefore, less heating and artificial lighting.
“We tend to do triple pane windows, as opposed to double pane windows,” he said. “You always have to be focusing on energy efficiency, and there’s costs associated with that.”
Privacy may be a concern for some people
Tanner and Scecpanovic said some clients may have concerns about privacy, but designs that incorporate glass can take many approaches to address that hesitation.
When it comes to Tanner’s design studio, he said depending on the clients’ needs, privacy can be achieved by making only a specific portion of the home entirely transparent, frosting other sections, or installing privacy glass that can be turned on or off at the flip of the switch (although he warned this technology can cost tens of thousands of dollars).
“Typically speaking, (clients are) quite open to an entry vestibule being open to the front and an office being open to the front and a formal dining room,” Tanner said. “But I don’t think that people are usually comfortable with their main family room or their kitchen space, their core entertainment zones, being directly accessible, view-scheme-wise, from the street.”
While some homes have treatments on the glass to stop people outside from being able to see inside, Tanner said he has only received requests about this treatment for garages so outsiders can’t see vehicles.
With increasing vehicle theft, Tanner said he has also seen more clients asking for safety glass that’s bulletproof and shatterproof.
