Cabbagetown Homes

Although homes were constructed as early as the 1850's in Cabbagetown, it was not until the 1870's and 1880's that significant numbers of houses were built .

Most of the houses in the area are built in the late Victorian era, the first ones on their sites. Intense development continued in to the early 1900’s creating the late Victorian, urban, tightly-packed density of houses on long narrow lots. The absence of garages, the small lot sizes and small front yards gives the area more a pedestrian scale. Old Cabbagetown once stretched from its current location to the south incorporating Corktown (named for the city in Ireland) and the area what is now Regent Park .

Cabbagetown represents a urban residential Victorian landscape with mixture of architecture styles and the homes the middle class of the time, with clapboard workers cottages and short row houses to tall ornamental townhouses. Victorian era Bay and Gable town houses are prevalent in the area. Bay and Gable home were quite popular in Toronto . Gable roofs made of slate and with metal eves troughs to eliminate standing water and damp for the Victorians were concerned about health and cleanliness, The large single pane bay windows, to encourage light also being the "high tech" of the era because of industrialization of glass production. A nod toward the "arts and crafts" through decorative woodwork in the gables, with stained glass transom windows above doors and the Bay window . Decorative wooden porches and sometimes decorative brickwork to show that one still had humanities and culture and was not completely lost to the modern age of science and industrialization. With the large number of Victorian town home that exist in Cabbagetown it is interesting to see the various styles of decorative detail that were incorporated in to the Bay and Gable design, Gothic revival styles with arched windows and doorways and porticos with rough masonry . Queen Anne styles with more elaborate ornamental work and dormers standing in as turrets. Second empire The Bay and Gable was very adaptable to many styles . In addition to the Victorian town homes there are many Georgian row houses and workers cottages.

Romanesque revival style with the rough stone lower half and yet keeps the Victorian large window rather then the small windows of the Romanesque style incorporating it and the stained glass transom window into the arch .The house also keeps the bay window with the small window in the portico just behind the arch of the entrance way.