Stonecutters Lofts

History of Stonecutters Lofts

Britain Street runs at an angle because it follows the course of a stream that crossed the “meadow”, the part of William Allan's estate south of Queen Street. Richmond Street here was then called Duchess Street, and in 1903 the Knox Mission Church stood at the south end of this lot.

The warehouse isn't on the 1910 Goad's fire insurance map but is on the 1913 one, drawn as four parts, so it went up around 1911 or 1912. The front sections at 282 and 284 Richmond Street East are still offices.

Later tenants included PS Production Services, which rented film equipment to the movie industry, with the American Strongbox Corp. making stainless-steel camera cases on the lower level, and then The Door Store, whose showroom was here from 1987 to 2003. Dundas Junction Corp. bought the building in 2002 for 25,000 and sold it in 2003 to Stonecutter Homes for ,070,000.

Stonecutter Homes converted it in 2005 into 5 lofts: two at or just below grade, two on the first floor and unit 200, a two-storey penthouse taking the whole top of the building. They have exposed brick, wood posts and beams, real hardwood floors and high-end finishes, and the conversion won an Ontario Association of Architects design award in 2011. The penthouse sold for close to million in 2012.

Stories you'll hear

An early burial ground is said to have been on this block, between Stonecutters Lane and Britain Street, with bodies reportedly turning up when Sherbourne and Britain Streets were built. Its exact edges were never well recorded.