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It's totally apropos that the door of the former St. Peter's Rectory at 1556 Dundas St. W. in the heart of Erindale Village should be painted bright red.
The colour might be said to stand for the blood, as in blood, sweat and tears, that orthodontist Eric Selnes and his wife have put into the place since they bought it and decided to restore it in February of 2005.
Or, since red is the colour of love, the door could be a symbol of the passion that Dr. Selnes and his wife Dr. Helen Grubisa, also an orthodontist, have for heritage. They bought the house with the intention of returning the 1861 structure to its original glory, and they've managed to do that despite the many unexpected challenges that arose.
The red door might also be symbolic of the colour of the ink that was spilled all over the project. Dr. Selnes estimates that about $500,000 was spent on the renovation, not including the purchase price.
The door is believed to be original to the house. In fact, the house's exterior has changed little since Dundas St. W. was a dirt track and Charlotte Schreiber was painting watercolours of the church that towers over the Credit and the former village of Springfield.
Now the inside of the house, which was last used as a rectory in 1960, matches the period of the exterior.
The first thing that strikes you when you step inside the restored building is the beautiful exposed brick walls that were the original back wall of the house before it was expanded. There are lots of original window casings and four original fireplaces. A new board and batten section that was not original to the house has been replicated and the original stone returned to the outside foundation.
Selnes wanted to expose the huge original ceiling beams too, but the cost of a sprinkler system that would be required nixed that hope.
The original designer for the project wanted the interior to be modern high-tech glitz, all stainless steel and glass, the antithesis of what Eric and Helen wanted. So they became their own designers and along with Helen's father, Zelko Grubisa who was the contractor for the job, they lovingly put together the new pieces of the interior. Chief among those is a central staircase, built from scratch out of old Canadian oak.
Because all the outside walls were heaving in from years of frost, they had to be underpinned. A new basement was created as a result of two months of digging, by hand. An outside exit from the basement had to be created at the insistence of the fire department.
And although that exit and the requirement for wheelchair access diminish the historical effect somewhat, the result is still a triumph.
Matthew Wilkinson, Heritage Mississauga's historian, whose great-grandfather constructed the building, says the orthodontists, "have done a wonderful job protecting and enhancing the heritage attributes of the building while making it entirely modern in function. It is an integral component of the cultural landscape of Erindale Village."
After his wife fell in love with the building, the couple talked to Mark Warrack at the City to find out how it could be restored and the project got rolling, there was no way any obstacles were going to get in the way, said Selnes.
"Why did we do it? It's just a piece of Canadiana," says Dr. Selnes of the structure. "It's got good energy, good karma. It's pre-Confederation. It just screams out: Keep it. It needed to be respected."
Then he adds tellingly, "I think I may appreciate it a little bit more than most people, because I'm an old soul."
It takes one to save one.