Robert Watson Lofts

History of Robert Watson Lofts

The building was put up for Columbia Graphophone, the record and gramophone company, at what was then 365 Sorauren Avenue. It is on the 1910 fire insurance map, a 1912 photo shows the Columbia sign over the door, and Columbia's ads for Grafonolas and double-disc records gave this address until at least 1916. You can still see the ghost of that sign on the north wall. In 1924 Louis Sterling of Columbia in London bought out the Toronto company, which moved to Front Street by 1927.

Then came the candy. Robert Watson, born in County Down, Ireland, in 1850, came to Toronto in 1867 with his brother Thomas and learned the trade at a local confectioner. In 1874 they started R. & T. Watson on Yonge Street, moved to Jarvis Street, and in 1888 built a factory on Front Street East designed by E.J. Lennox, the architect of Old City Hall. The company was known for lozenges like its Imperial Cough Drops, and after Columbia left, the company moved its candy works here.

Rosebud Homes and Sky Development converted the factory in 2007, its centenary by the usual count, keeping the painted lettering outside and the brick and timber inside, and built a six-storey soft-loft building behind it where a smaller building had stood. The 153 lofts run from about 550 to over 1,500 square feet, with 10- to 16-foot ceilings and arched windows in the old building; one ground-floor unit was carved from the boiler room, with the stump of the chimney poking through. The project won a 2011 Heritage Toronto Award and an honourable mention at the 2011 Toronto Urban Design Awards.

Stories you'll hear

“Built in 1907 by Robert Watson.” The candy company moved in only after Columbia Graphophone left in the 1920s, and nobody has pinned down the exact build year.

Toronto loft trivia: Lennox also designed Robert Watson's house at 234 St. George Street, now part of the Lennox Mews lofts, which makes Watson the only person in Toronto whose home and factory both became lofts.