National Post

The grace of a small, elegant house is a wonderful thing. The pressures placed on a house by dense population in and around it are enormous and constant; materials erode and finishes wear away. Over a lifetime, a house can lose everything that once made it elegant and interesting, as homeowner after homeowner tries to make it larger, warmer, easier to maintain and brighter. After a century or more of this sort of piecemeal -- albeit well-intentioned -- alteration, what began as a beautiful exterior is often left shrouded under a thick disguise. This series examines several Toronto house types and describes their original facades. Pseudo-Georgian is probably the most overused architectural term in many parts of Toronto. Scan any paper's real estate section and you'll see it attached to a somewhat dull property. Although most buildings referred to as Georgian weren't even a twinkle in their builder's eye during the reigns of British kings George I to IV (1714 to 1830), the reference hung on and is used to refer to vaguely neoclassical structures built throughout the British Empire. Georgian has come to mean dour respectability, cleanliness, a boat that will not rock. Oddly, it has become the language of choice for developers wanting to appeal to a nostalgic population -- without spending a lot on construction.