The Globe and Mail

R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Something Don Mills needs a little bit more of, if you ask me. "I think this is a real treasure — if people don't go about ruining the houses," Jim Peterson, 51, says of the neighbourhood where he and his wife moved last summer. "I don't understand why you would buy up here and then make [your house] look like it doesn't belong." Mr. Peterson, Barbara Stuart-Peterson, 42, and French bulldogs Allard and Prevost (named after French chefs) are sitting comfortably in their living room, facing an original 1953 Roman brick fireplace. Opposite this buff-coloured beauty, the dining area and recently renovated kitchen, nice as they are, can't hold a candle to the lush panorama of the Donalda Golf Club as it pours in through new oversized windows. Next door, out of view, is a monster home, and while it's not the focus of our conversation, in a sneaky kind of way it does inform our words.