Mark Sinnett

Kingston ON Home for Sale

A storybook sort of three-bedroom detached home built in the 1940s, with a secret garden all long grass and tree swings, and a detached garage that's probably too small for your 21st-Century SUV, but with its exposed brick comes across like a Victorian potting shed. This pretty house has mahogany trim all over, as well as hardwood floors, a living room fireplace, a couple hundred pretty windows at least, and a functional retro kitchen the colour of a lime blancmange. Its fantastic! And that's before you discover the sunroom at the back of the house that's like something out of a Merchant and Ivory film, or the alcove upstairs where perhaps you read, or knit, make art from wool. There is a gas boiler for heat, so the air barely moves unless it's to get out of your way, and there is a deck in front of the house (yes, in front!) so hidden by evergreens you could sit out there and count your good fortunes. Rideau Public School is just down the street and Winston Churchill is walkable, as are the downtown core and the Princess St shops.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

You can tell a lot about a home from the materials used to construct it. At 86 Lakeshore Boulevard, an extraordinary executive waterfront property in Kingstons west end, the tiles in the entry are limestone, the kitchen counters are cut from local wollastonite, the soft-close cabinets are in white oak. There is also slate flooring and a Douglas Fir window seat built for you to keep an eye on the lake. The attention to detail and sightline, to traffic pattern and elevation throughout the more than 3500 feet of living space is remarkable. A major architectural renovation six years ago has transformed the house. The kitchen (oh that kitchen!) hides premium appliances (Fisher & Paykel, Miele) away where they wont distract from the view. There is a modesty to the proceedings that feels rare and likely to extend ones life expectancy. The back family room (there is a front family room too) gives onto patios and decks and lawns and curated gardens, and then finally to a broad swathe of Lake Ontario, its endless blue-green views westward. There are chairs and a hammock out there right now and, well, I just dont know how one is supposed to get any work done. There are four bedrooms on the second floor, and the principal has the best, most stylish ensuite youve seen, There are three-and-a-half bathrooms (plus the glass-tiled dog shower) and there is a new one-bedroom walkup in-law suite in the basement for when family comes and never wants to leave. The hydronic heating system is state of the art, and has been supplemented by seven ductless splits for both heating and cooling. The garage is a double, and the driveway is circular. Youre ten minutes from the west-end shops and the downtown core, fifteen from the highway. The schools are brilliant and there are more parks around here than people (including Everitt Point Park, just three doors down). It may be the finest property offered in Kingston this season.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

A storybook sort of three-bedroom detached home built in the 1940s, with a secret garden all long grass and tree swings, and a detached garage way too small for your SUV, so dont bother even trying. Mahogany trim all over, hardwood floors, fireplace, a couple hundred pretty windows, and a kitchen the colour of a lime blancmange. Its quite fantastic. And that's before you discover the sunroom at the back of the house like something out of a Merchant and Ivory film, or the alcove upstairs that's way too small to call a bedroom, or even an office; perhaps you read in there, or knit, make art from wool. There is a gas boiler for heat, so the air barely moves unless it's to get out of your way, and there is a deck in front of the house (yes, in front!) so hidden by evergreens you could sit out there and count your treasure. Rideau Public is just down the street and Winston Churchill is walkable.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

I wrote not too long ago that 11 Raglan Road is an expertly renovated downtown townhouse all wrapped up in a fresh, dark chocolate siding. The best truffle in the box. Something like that anyway, and the sentiment still rings true for me, that blazing, cherry-red door pulling the image tight. So if your aim is to buy one of the sweetest homes in the Inner Harbour neighbourhood, not even a ten-minute walk from the citys core, well today is going to be a very good day for you. Spread over three floors (the third floor loft bedroom looks discreetly over the Cataraqui River) the house stacks a set of pale wood-accented spaces, each one striving to out-do the last. Knotty pine floors and stone counters, rough-hewn ceiling boards and whitewashed walls, subway tile and jazzy ceramics. Even a strip of exposed brick chimney at the top of the house. The stone surrounding the gas fireplace in the living room is like a cliff you find at the base of a waterfall. The renovations five years ago saw new floors laid down, as well as new insulation, and wiring, and plumbing, and sound-proofing, and windows. There are three bathrooms(!) and there is laundry upstairs, along with closet spaces deep enough a desk has been set into one and serves as a hideaway for top-secret calls. A shed at the back of the house makes for brilliant storage but if you removed it youd be left with a parking spot accessible via a right-of-way. Theres a grassy, private garden tucked away back there too, with dappled shade and often a string of fairy lights.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

Truth is, I like the Inner Harbour best. I walk up to The Elm for a coffee in the morning, and when time allows I take the K & P Trail down to Belle Park and then out to that glorious sinking island in the middle of the Cataraqui River. Its an hour and ten round-trip, and the best part of many of my days. The downtown core is a fifteen-minute stroll in the other direction. 314 Rideau St was probably built to house people working in the shipyards, or at the Woollen Mill. Its a cottage, through and through, both modest and charming. There were once serious woods behind the house and now those acres are shared with ball diamonds and soccer fields. The restored Broom Factory is directly opposite, pretty much, with its cafe and its concert spaces, its funky and low-slung red-brick architecture, its lone EV plug. The house itself is bright and well-appointed, with three beds and two baths, and a kitchen (with its own island) big enough for your choir group singalongs. There is a wooden beam strung with industrial lights that screams back forty square dance, though I dont have a clue why. There is a private-feeling deck out back, and a block shed. Mostly I think what I feel about this little blue house is that Im pleased I get to offer it for sale, that you can still buy a good house downtown in the low 400s. It feels to me a smart place to start the home ownership part of your life, or even to wind that stage up, and if someone tossed me the key Id be mighty thrilled.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

The views from the balcony at this marvellous top-floor condominium in Kingstons east end are just silly, taking in Kingstons downtown core, with Lake Ontario on its shoulder, a serious mile-long stretch of the Cataraqui River, as well as ancient and forested Belle Island, and then on north to the new Waaban Crossing. There is simply no better panorama in Kingston. Its the sort of balcony upon which royalty gets married, or DiCaprio makes eyes at Kate Winslet. The unit used to have two bedrooms, and could be made that way again quite straightforwardly.. But the second was divided into brilliant storage and also an extension to the living room, with built-in cabinetry for your books and your entertainment systems. There is now an entire wing, it feels, given over to wining and dining. The seller added a good heat pump for both heating and cooling, as well as stone counters in the kitchen, and new flooring throughout the unit. The bedroom has a splendid ensuite bathroom, and theres a second three-piece with a toilet and shower. #809 also has the closest access to the rooftop pool. There is a second pool downstairs, near the gym and the meeting room, the library and the guest suite. This feels to me like the perfect opportunity to live above the fray and, if you're ambitious, train every morning for the next Olympics.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

A spacious three-bedroom home (2+1) with a partly finished basement on a 50 by 132 foot lot with an attached garage/workshop. The asking price means that you have options here - renovate simply and live (or rent out) close to downtown Kingston without breaking the bank, or go to town on the house and create something new and altogether brilliant. There is work here but also the promise of real reward. Others - although this feels a bit drastic - may decide the value is in the location and the lot itself. Whichever future you settle on, the evolution of the property promises to be fascinating and I'll be driving by all summer.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

671 Sussex Blvd is just about the most casually stylish three-bedroom, two-bathroom Bayridge sidesplit imaginable. Add any other detail and youre on a film set. The basement, for instance, comes across like a private room in a Manhattan club. Most Friday nights a long time ago, I swear Lou Reed lounged down there with Andy Warhol. So youre buying a landmark, but also a smart, bright home in Bayridge South, close to parks and schools and shopping, Lemoines Point, and even the golf course. There is a proper living room where youll just marvel at the Hoover-Dam-like curve of that mid-century front window, and also a sunken family room with a wood-burning fireplace. There is a formal dining room with sliding doors out to a splendid deck overlooking the huge private garden, but also an eat-in kitchen kitted out with a lime-cushioned booth for Pizza Night. There are lots of hardwood floors and good ironwork and mid-century doors, as well as an attached single garage. Intensely cool, it also feels custom-built to me; the distilled result of careful planning and a keen eye.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

A stones throw from both Lancaster Drive and Mother Teresa Public Schools, as well as Holy Cross Secondary, this brick-fronted bungalow with its total of five bedrooms (three on the main floor and two more in the excellent, fully finished basement) is the perfect family home for those wanting to settle in Kingstons Westwoods neighbourhood, close to all the shopping and the movie theatres (and what feels like more park acreage than the Lake District). Tucked into a quiet cul-de-sac the house presents as a hideaway from the bustle, with a true double garage, pretty fenced garden and decks (including off the principal bedroom). Highlights include three full bathrooms, hardwood flooring, big windows, organization systems built into the closets, stainless steel appliances (including a gas stove with double oven), and a gas fireplace in the superb recreation room downstairs.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

This splendid two-storey midtown home, with its extravagant gardens, as well as its brilliant detached workshop (to me it screams in-law or secondary suite) and its terra cotta tile, its added sunroom at the back of the house, its stone-wrapped woodstove and the oak floors, its skylights and hangouts, its gracious archways and its kitchen full of pot-hangers and acres of countertop, a full-on lounge, is unlike anything you were daring to hope for this season. It is, in all the important ways, better than what has come before. There are two bedrooms, but until recently there were three, and a weekends work would make it that way again. There is a bathroom on each level. A walk-in pantry with laundry hook-up. The basement is set up for unexpected drop-ins, with a separate sleeping area.

Kingston ON Residential Income for Sale

A downtown up-and-down Inner Harbour legal duplex with the utilities all nicely separated. A freshly renovated (it's really quite brilliant) three-bedroom ground floor unit is vacant and ready to go. Up above is a good two-bedroom unit also vacant. Both have their own furnace and AC systems. This spacious detached property is in fine condition with maintenance-free vinyl siding, as well as ample parking and outdoor space. The downtown core is a twelve-minute stroll, Doug Fluhrer Park and the waterfront is not even five minutes away, and The Elm Cafe is closer than your own kitchen. It seems an unusually fine investment to me, offering the opportunity to set your own rents or live inexpensively in one of the city's most thrilling neighbourhoods. Conservative rents would be $2000 + on the main floor and $1300 + upstairs. 2023 taxes of $4493 and insurance of approximately $1400 per year suggest an NOI of 33, 707 and a very healthy CAP rate of 6.2%.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

79 Colborne St is beautiful, of course, but not particularly glamorous. It is more glamorous-in-waiting, like the brilliant teenager slumming it in front of a Playstation console (in an old Lou Reed T-shirt). The colours dont match (the third-floor loft is the colour of a London bus while the laundry nook is lined with the wildest Florida lime), and the flooring involves a looking-glass sort of checkerboard as well as thick coral shag-pile in a bedroom or two. It is a forgotten bag of liquorice all-sorts, a mixed load of laundry. Which is to say that you will likely fall in love immediately with this downtown townhouse, and then tease from it an altogether brilliant third act. The living and dining rooms are but high-ceilinged escorts to the fabulous staircase, its octagonal newel post like something plundered from a Victorian gambling den. There is a gas fireplace in the kitchen with the wingspan of Pavarotti, and beyond that a courtyard where you surely negotiate the end of wars, the start of an affair. You park your Bugatti back there, or the horses you had grazing all morning at McBurney Park. There are three bedrooms on the second floor and the loft can be a fourth, with its own ensuite, as if the plan all along was to both rise above the fray and ride out the apocalypse. Id finish the basement too, and install a Churchillian pool table beneath sulphur beams, line the stone walls with mahogany humidors. You see where Im going with this: 79 Colborne St is that oil painting the conservationist examines with cotton swabs and then returns with the news that youve bought yourself a Rembrandt. It is the perfectly designed magic trick; the handsome devil you nearly missed.

Battersea ON Home for Sale

A remarkable, intensely modern two-bedroom, two-bathroom rammed earth home just over twenty minutes north of Kingston. Perhaps you'll recognise the centuries-old construction technique instantly - the walls (they are two feet thick and utility costs last year averaged $172 per month) give the illusion of a sand beach stood on end like a painting. Heat is provided by a four-zone in-floor radiant hot water system and the floors on the vaulted open-plan main level are concrete. There is an HRV to regulate humidity levels and a state-of-the-art water filtration system. There are German windows and doors so substantial that when you lever them open or closed they feel lifted from some metropolitan art gallery. The metal roof wraps up the pine-clad ceilings like a space-age raincoat. The loft makes for a presidential sort of hideaway (with an ensuite Richard Branson wanted for his island, is what I hear). The lot is a completely fenced and entirely awesome two acres. There is drainage beneath the undulating lawns and a dark, soft-edged cliff off in the corner that comes across like a giants pillow. I havent even mentioned the post and beam, the high-end appliances and induction stove, or the mile of quartz counter you lean on to contemplate the state of the world, and those ceilings so far off that laying on the couch the knots in the pine blink like night-sky stars, and every drifting thought gathers as high, gauzy cloud.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

A spacious three-bedroom home with a partly finished basement on a 50 by 132 foot lot with an attached garage/workshop. The asking price means that you have options here - renovate simply and live (or rent out) close to downtown Kingston without breaking the bank, or go to town on the house and create something new and altogether brilliant. There is work here but also the promise of real reward. Others - although this feels a bit drastic - may decide the value is in the location and the lot itself. Whichever future you settle on, the evolution of the property promises to be fascinating and I'll be driving by all summer.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

A really splendid, even rather grand, four-bedroom carpet-free Tamarack home in Kingstons east end, with a walkout lower level and over 4000 square feet of elegant finished living space. The sensation, upon entering, is of having discovered something better than anything that has come before, both in terms of scale and finishings. The light reflects off the floors in shimmering parallelograms and teardrops, as if youre inside some ultra-modern chandelier. At the back of the house, nearly a mile from the entrance, is the quartz-countered, subway-tiled kitchen, with a separate butlers pantry and doors out to an elevated deck. The living room with its gas fireplace is other side of a stone-topped island with stools nudged modestly under its northern lip. It is a family house at heart. There is a formal dining room, and a mud room, and a second sitting area on this level as well. You will want for nothing. There are California shutters on all the windows. There are also four bedrooms and a laundry. The principal suite is tucked away with its own spa bathroom. All the bedrooms have walk-in closets. The remarkably open lower level features a walkout to the gardens. There is even a fifth bedroom and further bathroom for when family stops in and then stays for the weekend because how is anyone supposed to tear themselves away. The house is situated on a quiet street just off Greenwood Park Drive, which puts you close to trails and shopping, schools and the downtown core.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

A fairytale two-bedroom downtown cottage with a third-floor hideaway, a main floor custom kitchen, and intensely handsome Jotul stove that glows all evening, like a film star reading over a new contract. The intensely renovated house (plumbing, electrical, insulation and so on) sits just north of Raglan Road on the west side of the street. I would describe the colour of the place as plum mixed with cherry. The porch and trim are navy. It is rather like a bird you might find high in a palm tree somewhere, a species protected by law. The ground floor has been opened up and the kitchen at the rear is a General-Store-style marvel of reclaimed hardwood and hammered tin, with Lee Valley hardware and a heated slate floor. There is exposed post and beam as well as brickwork, and tongue in groove pine floors set against American Clay walls. You are cast in a film that any minute will be up for a set design Oscar, that's how it feels. A rolling ladder provides entry to the third-floor studio/bedroom/hideaway, and above your head is a 2019 steel roof. The rain can't stand it. The garden is private, and distinctly Nordic, all rough wood and old low-to-the-ground-decking. The shed is fully insulated. Pizza Monster is around the corner. The Elm is over one block. Daughters is just up John and Doug Fluhrer Park is visible just about from the corner. If you need the main drag its a ten-minute meander. Street parking is twelve bucks a month. The lifestyle - and here, darn it, comes the cliche - is priceless.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

117 Rideau St is a very smart (and modern, the house was built in 1994)) red-brick downtown townhouse with an attached garage (and inside entry to that garage), with three very large bedrooms (or two, and a marvellous third-floor rec room) and two-and-a-half baths, including an ensuite. These facts alone will draw a crowd. But the additional details are impressive. There are granite counters in the glamorous white kitchen and proper seating at the stone-topped island, as well as all sorts of custom built-ins. The floors on the main level in the living and dining rooms are hickory, and there are warm carpets upstairs. The laundry is tucked handily between the second-floor bedrooms. There are sliding glass doors (did I mention how bright the house is?) out to the fenced, mature garden with its big low deck, and even sneaky views of the Cataraqui River. You are only a block from Doug Fluhrer Park and a couple more to the citys core. Its an easy walk to McBurney Park, the hospitals and the university campus, as well as RMC.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

13 Fifth Avenue is a rather brilliant Kingscourt bungalow - as light-filled as a greenhouse, both spacious and stylish, with good renovations and a smart modern flow to it. You walk me in blindfolded and then offer the big reveal (ta-da!) Id believe it was built just this year, was something modular designed off-shore and trucked in with a police escort. The main living space at the front of the house has oak floors and a gas stove. It is far enough, from end to end, to walk the dog. There are views through to the kitchen with its robins egg cabinets and butcher-block counter, its subway tile backsplash and its gas stove. The breakfast area reads like a full-on dining room, some Brooklyn diner. Two bedrooms are spaced along the eastern wall, and one has sliding doors straight out to the deck and the mature gardens. Its the sort of room youd expect to rent for a sunny long weekend in The County. There is a pretty third bedroom in the finished basement, a fantastic space in its own right, with a rec room youll use (and I covet), a three-piece bathroom, and laundry. An in-law suite seems a smart future. A good detached garage with a new opener and a workshop door has been built at the end of the long driveway. You could park the car in there, sure, but cut a new window into the side you could also write your next book, or build your next space shuttle. I like this house an awful lot, is what it all means, and I think you will too.

Kingston ON Residential Income for Sale

With parking, patio, garden, and income potential, 64 Wellington St is perfect for a young professional, retired couple, or someone wanting a Kingston pied-a-terre. This stunning duplex (circa 1841, stucco over brick) is situated close to City Park and the university, and just up the street from Lake Ontario. The renovations are marvellous, the appliances high-end, and the garden an oasis. The two one-bedroom units both feature solid-wood custom kitchens and exposed brickwork and clawfoot tubs. It is hard to choose between them, but if I lived there myself, I would write at a desk set dead-centre of the room beyond the ground-floor kitchen, staring wistfully out at the interlocking brick patio, trying to unravel in words its dappled shade. I would write better sentences, I know I would. I would also sleep better than I ever have, at the back of the house and far from the madding crowd, in that pine-ceilinged bedroom with the garden wrapped around it like a quilt. The parlour at the front of the house belongs in a magazine, or that Hardy novel youve been meaning to re-read. Some will view the property less romantically, perhaps installing their children, one above the other while theyre at Queens, giving them every possible advantage. And fair enough, because all sorts of brilliant futures are possible here.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

St Catherine St runs north off of Pine between Barrie and Patrick, which puts you in either the McBurney Park area, or the Inner Harbour, or The Fruit Belt, depending on where you draw your borders. Whichever it is, the street comes preloaded with downtowns best (unofficial) toboggan hill. The two-storey three-bedroom home on offer here is stupidly pretty and has been both expertly and extensively renovated. To my eye it reads like a Toronto renovation in that the ground floor has been entirely opened up. There is no remnant of an archway between the living and dining rooms, there is no hallway, no isolated kitchen. Instead there is just a rather glorious rectilinear space with light coming in at the front and at the back, and nothing to stop it from meeting up precisely in the middle. Its more expensive to renovate this way - youre hiding posts and beams, and protecting structure in a way that does real damage to the bank balance - but the end result is striking. The gas fireplace beside the front window provides a focal point, and a nod to history, but this is really just back-up to the brilliant cold-temperature heat pump installed last year (the insulation was upgraded too). There are pot lights and French doors, and a stacked washer and dryer in the corner of the kitchen that makes it feel decidedly European. The outside deck and the gardens will enhance both your espressos and your Merlots. Upstairs there are three bedrooms, and a bathroom that involves both modern shower stall and clawfoot tub. The original doors have been retained on this level and the paint /no-paint patterns on their faces are like maps from a Victorian atlas.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

This semi-detached three-bedroom one-and-two-half bath home on Charles St - just down the street from The Elm Cafe and a short walk to the river, the downtown core, McBurney Park, Central Public - dates to 1870. You wouldnt guess that from the big modern window at the front, or the metal roof, the new midnight blue paint job, but inside is a home bursting with character. The pine floors have that polished golden glow that only time will produce, and I cant come close to reaching the main floor ceilings. The kitchen was redone in 2018 and its white quartz counters, I realize, match this mornings fresh snow out in the sweet garden (with its stone patio and new shed and big tree) just beyond the sliding doors and the window seat. Turn on the right music and youre on a movie set. The two-piece bathroom on this floor was added in 2022 and is at least as smart and charming as your favourite human, as are the three good bedrooms, and the upstairs laundry.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

You stand before the windows of the splendid living room at the back of this 1940s waterfront home, looking over the near-acre of long lawns and old trees and wild perennial gardens that tumble down to the St Lawrence River, and the fireplace roars away at your back in a way that evokes an old castle guarding the international border. There is a wall of books too, though nothing described in their pages would feel any more grand. International treaties should be hammered out in this room. The front of the house is more intimate, a thick-walled cottage, a series of reception rooms with painted wooden floors and lifted from deep forest, a spot youd expect to find surrounded by dry stone walls and Dartmoors wild horses. There are 1 1/2 baths and three bedrooms, though the third bedroom would make a better office, a private corner in which to hide and write your novel (on days you cant be bothered to make the hike down to the waterfront studio). There is a woodstove next to the country kitchen and a couple of armchairs youll want to keep, so perfectly situated are they. There is a shaded deck behind the house on which to reflect, and a laundry room, just so you can begrudge that chores are even a thing. The views from absolutely everywhere are of Treasure island and Howe, and remind you in postcard ways that Kingstons downtown core is barely a ten-minute drive.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

This handsome end unit red-brick townhouse in the Inner Harbour is a block from the river and a ten-minute walk from The Screening Room. The Elm Cafe and Pizza Monster are maybe a minute away. None of that matters, of course, if you cant bring yourself to leave the house. I move through these renovated and so-lovely rooms with a reverence, as if Ive stumbled upon a secular chapel at the end of a hike through towering firs. Which is odd, given the distinctly urban setting, but there is, I swear, a serenity to this one, a sense of good energies lavished for more than a century. I like particularly the angle of the south wall in the living and the dining room, the way the house widens towards the back, as if leading you into better understandings. I like the half step up into a kitchen that feels lifted from the Cotswolds, as does the skinny sunroom where you sit with your true love or your newspaper. I like, because I can be practical too, the fact that the furnace and AC were installed just last year. There used to be four bedrooms but one has been converted into a splendid laundry, with enough built-in storage to hide treasures. One of the remaining three has a mat set at the centre of the floor and the idea is that you sit there and meditate, I think, or contort yourself into shapes I havent managed in a decade. Id wander instead, taking in the spa bathroom, the dark-framed windows and the sound of rain on the metal roof. I might build up into that attic somewhere down the road, just to access the view it would likely provide of the water, the swans in formation heading south from dark forest. Parking is by permit ($12/mth) and there's always a spot at the door.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

300 Sydenham Street is without question a wonderful and elegant home, just moments from the heart of downtown Kingston and steps to lovely McBurney Park. With views of the Cataraqui River just down the hill, it is a grand and historical picture of old Inner Harbour, a home that has further been refined throughout to showcase its warmth, elegance, and roots. Featuring an open concept dining and living area with 9 foot ceilings and gas fireplace, 3 bedrooms and 2 full bathrooms, (one ensuite) classic and quality marble floor tile and original hardwood floors, the home has wisely chosen finishes throughout. The owners have restored the original stairs and bannister and updated the walls, ceilings and lighting, adding both modern and classic finishes, while keeping in mind the original character and heart of this beautiful property. Theres parking for 2 or perhaps 3 small vehicles, and an area out back of the home to create a garden oasis or modern downtown patio for friends and family to dine, play and entertain. Its a truly lovely home that has been meticulously updated and cared for, and it is an absolute pleasure to introduce.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

No one is ever going to use the word elegant to describe me, and so perhaps if I want to be attached to such a descriptor I should buy the rather special semi-detached home that is 300 Sydenham St for myself. It might solve all my problems. Just a single, exhilarated breath from McBurney Park and with views of the Cataraqui River at the bottom of the hill, it is a fine example of Inner Harbour excellence. With open concept dining and living room and 9 foot ceilings, along with a gas fireplace, three bedrooms and two full bathrooms, (one ensuite) quality marble floor tile and original hardwood floors, there is the sense, amid this marvellous blend of the historical and the bracingly modern, that Emily Dickinson might appear any minute on the lovingly restored original staircase, pen in hand. Other rewrites include the walls, ceilings and lighting. There is parking for at least two carriages lined up around back, and surely room enough left over for a small greenhouse or patio.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

131 King E was fashioned in the Georgian style from local limestone in 1842 by William Coverdale. Today it houses a set of unique and desirable condominiums just a block from Lake Ontario and City Park. On the far side of the park is the university campus. Same distance in the other direction is Kingstons downtown core. Unit 8 is spread elegantly over four floors. At its heart (on the second level) is a ballroom well-disguised as a living room, with towering ceilings and windows, a suite of built-in bookcases. Off to one side, the custom kitchen, with its quartz counters and stainless appliances, feels to have perfected the form, and the balcony off the southern face is where you head with breakfast. There is a bedroom a few steps down from this level, as well as on each of the two floors above. The principal bedroom, in fact, with its ensuite bathroom and its walk-in, involves an intensely modern staircase from a lower level staging area. It is where you dress for the ball, perhaps. Exposed limestone and brick pops up regularly. There is a stained glass transom window and two decorative fireplaces. The sense throughout the nearly 2400 square feet is of history accommodating you, and enhancing the experience of living at the very centre of things, rather than simply imposing itself. Parking, of course, is right at the door.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

136 Ordnance St is a two-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath semi-detached brick century home a half-block from McBurney Park. Its been painted a rich cream, and comes across in mornings haze as slightly soft-edged, almost as if packed with goose down. At the same time it feels rigorously built, something whipped up in an advanced geometry class, a composition of perfect rectangles and ninety-degree angles. How tall can we make this box, how distant the back wall? The stylish wood stove set in the front room means that you can rest, whenever you want, in a mountaintop ski chalet. Further back, in the kitchen, there are far-off tin ceilings, dovetailed solid cabinets, and black concrete counters, as if a hundredweight of liquorice had been pressed into oil- and knife-resistant slabs. Theres the Miele gas stove lifted from a Michelin star restaurant and yet also so sleek it must be something that hasnt quite been invented yet. The elevated deck and the secluded stone patio offer a supercut of Downtown Urban. There are two bedrooms upstairs, but the landing is an office, an art space, there is more than enough real estate there that a third bedroom could be built over a long weekend. There is a walk-in closet and second-floor laundry, a clawfoot tub in the main bathroom that feels distinctly film-set. It makes you want to laugh, it really does, in that astonished sort of way you might laugh when your lottery numbers come up.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

A solid, detached bungalow just a couple of blocks north of Regiopolis Notre Dame High School. Two bedrooms on the main floor (with potential for a third), and a high-ceilinged semi-finished basement with a separate side entrance, as well as a rec room, bedroom, and laundry. The high-efficiency gas furnace was replaced, along with the AC, in 2014, and the roof was reshingled in 2019. There is a large deck off the rear of the house. It would make for a good family home convenient to the downtown core, or a very smart investment property. Plenty of mid-century character remains intact, along with oak floors in the living and dining rooms, and it is priced so that you can spend enough on it to make the whole place shine again, sort of like a disco ball, if a disco ball was rectangular and studded with windows that opened to the inside.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

131 King E was fashioned in the Georgian style from local limestone in 1842 by William Coverdale. Today it houses a set of unique and desirable condominiums just a block from Lake Ontario and City Park. On the far side of the park is the university campus. Same distance in the other direction is Kingstons downtown core. Unit 8 is spread elegantly over four floors. At its heart (on the second level) is a ballroom, I swear, though well-disguised these days as a living room, with towering ceilings and windows, a suite of built-in bookcases. I have seen less impressive libraries. Off to one side, the custom kitchen, with its quartz counters and stainless appliances, feels to have perfected the form, and a balcony tucked away at the southern limit of the space is surely where you hide from your chores. There is a bedroom a few steps down from this level, as well as on both of the two floors above. The principal bedroom, in fact, with its ensuite bathroom and its walk-in, involves an intensely modern staircase from a lower level staging area. It is where you dress for the ball, perhaps, or sit in private and write a novel. Exposed limestone and brick pops up regularly. There is a stained glass transom window and two decorative fireplaces. The sense throughout the nearly 2400 square feet is of history accommodating you, and enhancing the experience of living at the very centre of things, rather than simply imposing itself. Parking, of course, is right at the door.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

144 Churchill Crescent is a lovely raised bungalow in red-brick with an attached garage and one of the largest lots on this most desirable of streets. The living room extends across the back of the house to take full advantage of the views and the mature trees, the lawns headed for the western horizon, the interlock wrapped around the house like a ribbon. There are three bedrooms on the main floor, as well as a well-renovated bathroom. The basement, which sits high out of the ground and is well-lit as a result, is fully finished and also provides direct access to the garage. Its a lovely family home, spacious and elegant, a classic of sorts, but there are those who will consider building up, I suspect, as the neighbour has done with an identical property, to create a majestic two-storey home.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

A character-filled and very spacious residential triplex (seven bedrooms in total) housed in a glorious red-brick building at the edge of the fruit belt and just east of Division on York St. Walk downtown from here, or over to the university. The main floor, and part of the basement, is taken up by a large and very pretty four-bedroom apartment thats just been professionally painted and extensively smartened up. Its vacant and ready to go. The ceilings are far-off and the rooms are large. Up above is a bright two-bedroom unit that the sellers lived in for a while. There is subway tile and there are stainless appliances and quartz counters. The Ikea cabinets are the colour of storm clouds. The one-bedroom basement unit has been painted white throughout (except for a splash of pink tile in the bathroom) and is utterly charming. There is a high-capacity on-demand boiler keeping everything warm, along with very recent windows, interior doors, insulation, etc, along with plenty of rentable parking, a carport, a sweet garden, and even a garage for you to rent out or use as a staging area for all your landlord gear. Its an unusually good offering with very reasonable income projections pushing the Cap Rate comfortably over 7%.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

We look at the photographs of this brilliant three-bedroom Hillendale bungalow with its high-out-of-the-ground two-bedroom in-law suite and think, Yeah, those work, thats exactly what were selling here. Theres none of the usual maddening exaggeration, it really is this good, this bright, this desirable. The kitchen has been completely reworked in the last couple of years and is the open-plan hub around which the house flows. The quartz-topped island is large enough that it might show up on the better maps, and the materials throughout feel carefully chosen, not slapdash. The bedrooms are tucked away at the other end of the house, where its always quiet, and out behind the house is a glammy sort of deck and a garden big enough for team sports. Finally, hidden deep inside the unassuming garage, there is an insulated hideaway/studio/mountaintop cave fit for the rock star in you. Its almost enough to keep you out of the house itself. The yard has had lots of recent landscaping including a new firepit. The yard is very private in the Summer months.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

Ive known for a few months that this sweet little house was going to be sold this season, and almost every day Ive wanted to haul my beaten-up soapbox to the exact centre of one of the many neighbourhood parks and yell out the address through my battered aluminum megaphone, throw open the doors and hand out welcome baskets. I can be impatient. 344 Mack St is a move-in-ready three-bedroom (two up), two-bathroom detached bungalow with a professionally finished basement, two gas stoves and an open plan main floor. But more than that, its a sweet, utterly charming house. Everything just seems right - the rooms are the right size, the windows are in the right place to illuminate your lives. You put a vase of lilies on the kitchen counter, as I did, and the light falls right on their face, as if to endorse them, elevate them, make them the best darn lilies they can be. The two main level bedrooms are tucked away at the back of the house. The third is down below, where its a little cooler in the summer, and a little darker too. Theres a fabulous rec room and another bathroom too, as well as a second gas fireplace. You could put a kitchen in this professionally finished space - back where the laundry is makes most sense - and youd have a very nifty in-law suite.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

108 Raglan Road is one of my very favourites. A four-bedroom, two-bathroom detached red-brick home with good parking, just down the slope from McBurneys northern edge. A house that sits high above the street so as to pull in just a bit more sunlight than is standard. There is a very private courtyard out back that's rich with April birdsong, along with a splash of lawn where Im told you sit and drink gin. Among the many highlights for me are: the front porch high above the street with its tiled floor, like the observation deck at some art deco skyscraper; the white walls and toffee floors; the splendid kitchen with its Thor stove and its quartz counters so cool to the touch, as if milk had been poured into a mould; the skylights upstairs, dropping all that light onto books. I'm also really taken by the way the fourth bedroom is hidden away at the back of the house rather than on the second floor. Install a kitchen in the basement below it and youve made something distinctly European, a separate two-storey suite like something that might open onto Hyde Park.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

If you stuck a pin into the heart of Strathcona Park its likely youd land somewhere right around 17 Westmoreland Road, or in the playing fields behind the house. Its a bungalow, one of those with the garage tucked in underneath and direct entry into the lower level (which is no afterthought here, it must be said, with its big, splashy rec room and fourth bedroom, a custom laundry, three-piece bathroom, and mud room). If you get home tired, and come inside this way, theres really very little need to head upstairs. Our guess, though, is youll make that Herculean effort because the reward is just so darned handsome. The house has been professionally renovated from top to bottom in the last half dozen years, with a bright open plan, quartz counters, subway tile, a gas fireplace, heated floors in the main bathroom, modern lighting, and engineered hardwood floors. The fresh shingles (May) and furnace (2021) mean there really is nothing left to do, except perhaps retreat to the private, exquisitely landscaped grounds. The effect outside is stately. Where I grew up I saw more modest houses with iron fences wrapped around them and herds of domesticated deer being fed by children on day trips. This is not like that, but its close.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

525 Bagot St, a three-bedroom detached downtown home with parking and a deep yard, has been renovated extensively in the last few years, with the pace of change picking up in 2023, when pale new hardwood flooring was installed on both levels, along with a new gas fireplace, all sorts of new cabinetry, and a new furnace and AC. The idea was to either hunker down, or make the house irresistible. The flooring alone seems somehow to have increased the square footage. The halls feel both longer and wider than they did last year, the rooms more expansive, the ceilings further off, the light more intense. There is a main-floor laundry and bathroom at the back of the house, and a kitchen built to make light work of even the most elaborate Ottolenghi recipe. The bottomless garden, with its endless lawns and its rough pleasing symmetry, is a fabulous bonus. Located just north of Raglan Road, a block from the river, and an easy stroll into the downtown core and McBurney Park.

Battersea ON Land for Sale

Seventy-three really beautiful acres a relaxed twenty-minute drive north of Kingston and just five south of Battersea and Loughborough Lake. A severance isnt possible here, but all that means is you get to keep it all to yourself. Its a glorious quilt of level fields, along with deciduous forest and splendid wetland, with a drilled well in place and a fine choice of building sites. If your intention is to farm, its the 25 or so prepped acres that will grab your attention. But there are several ways to approach the property. The wetlands along the back will call to the duck hunters or frog fiends among you, and youll wander trails between pretty slopes thick with mature sugar maples to get there. Some of these have already been tapped. I really could see you selling tickets just to visit. It's a world-class location for your dream home, or hobby farm, your getaway from the ordinary.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

A detached two-bedroom midtown home (making a third bedroom would be very straighforward) spread over three impressive floors, with a long list of renovations (4-pc bathroom and foyer 2019, woodstove, deck and two-piece ensuite 2020, furnace and shingles 2021, finished basement 2022), a waterproofed lower level, and a 25 by 19 foot garden studio. 712 Portsmouth Avenue sits well back from the road and once inside you might as well be middle of a forest, so quiet does it seem. The elevated deck and deep, pretty garden behind the house only enhance the effect. The woodstove does its bit too. But there is also a distinctly urban feel here, with its custom kitchen (stainless appliances, quartz counters, subway tile backsplash) and the way that room is open to the rest of the ground floor. There is a bedroom on this level too, and a splendid four-piece bathroom. Upstairs is an office or perhaps a family room, with exposed rafters like the rib bones of a whale, and then the second bedroom with its own ensuite. The double garage behind the house has been transformed, as well as insulated and drywalled. A plug-in heater keeps it comfortable all year. There is even a stage in the corner for you to perform with your band or your more dramatic friends. More profitable would be the creation of a secondary suite back there, or a luxury pad for the in-laws or the teenagers.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

403 Bagot St, right downtown, between Ordnance and Bay (Walk Score 96), is a classic detached four-bedroom red-brick, and makes for a special sort of family home, or smart investment (a fifth bedroom would be straightforward, as would conversin back to a duplex). Formal and high-ceilinged living and family rooms, a separate dining room, then kitchen, then three-piece bathroom and laundry. The ground floor is a mile deep front-to-back. Upstairs is more of the same with the principal bedroom at the top of the back staircase. A 75K renovation to this room and the adjoining bathroom in 2019 have created an elegant, restful space quite separate from the darker hardwoods to be found elsewhere in the house. The shingles were replaced last year and the exterior gingerbread was repainted at the same time. There is a sweet fenced garden and ample parking beyond the back fence. Its not easy to find brick homes with this much space, and this much character (the plaster moldings! the stained glass transom! the classic iron radiators!) this close to the citys core. The Artillery Park Aquatic Centre is almost across the street, and Novel Idea is not even a five-minute stroll away.

Frontenac ON Home for Sale

A very attractive lot (0.31 acres) and an old cottage on Long Lake, just north-west of Parham. The 100 feet of waterfront is level and the water deepens gradually, with a sandy spot to wade in and swim away. The old cottage (1961) will need work, or replacement, but does give you a footprint close to the water. Presently arranged to offer a sitting room, an enclosed porch, and two bedrooms. I drove there from downtown Kingston in well under an hour. The roads are good and the views up and down the lake once you arrive are fantastic.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

182 Clergy St East is a superbly-renovated and very stylish three-bedroom home just south of McBurney Park. A limestone and brick wall in the exquisite vaulted kitchen at the rear of the house extends, as if by magic, into the private landscaped garden. That quality extends to the entire property with its tasteful colour schemes and really top-notch updates, to its drive-through garage (a garage, downtown!) and its twin gas fireplaces. There is an office on this level, too (which could just as easily be used as a guest room or library). Upstairs, two of the three big bedrooms have views over the garden, and the third has direct access to the luxurious bathroom. There is a serious laundry room up there as well. Step onto the porch and McBurney Park is immediately to your left and the downtown core is just a couple of blocks in the other direction. There wont be anything as well-located and well-finished this season. You are close to the university, all the shops and restaurants, the lake, and the hospitals. And if on Day One you should pull some celebratory champagne from the fridge (I know I would!) that kitchen ceiling is so far-off the cork wont even come close.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

403 Bagot St, downtown between Ordnance and Bay (Walk Score 96), is a classic red-brick century home and a smart investment, given that a fifth, and even sixth, bedroom could be created in a weekend. The university campus is a dead-easy twenty-minute walk or five-minute bike ride straight through City Park, and at this price a cap rate well over 6% is a formality, and over 7% a distinct possibility. High-ceilinged living and family rooms, a separate dining room, then kitchen, then three-piece bathroom and laundry. The ground floor is about a mile deep, front-to-back. Upstairs is more of the same with the principal bedroom at the top of the back staircase. A 75K renovation in 2019 to this room and the adjoining bathroom have created a restful space separate from the darker hardwoods elsewhere in the house. The shingles were replaced last year and the exterior gingerbread was repainted at the same time. The gas boiler is efficient and was just serviced. A fenced garden with a bike shed, and ample parking (aka more income potential!) are a real bonus. Its really hard to find brick homes with this much space, and this much character (the plaster moldings! the stained glass transom! the iron radiators!) this well-located. Add the profitable math to that picture and 403 Bagot St really is one of a kind.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

152 years ago someone pushed one limestone block against another and began the process of building 145 James St. The world is different now, and so is the house, but it retains its modest, low-to-the-ground charm and the sense that another century and a half will see it sitting just as proudly. 145 is the most westerly of three attached Inner Harbour cottages and the setting sun warms its flank every afternoon. The interior, while showing plenty of the limestone, and sporting pine floors gone the colour of good toffee, has been thoroughly modernised. There is a lemon-yellow steel I-beam dividing the front sitting room from the back half, and a glass-sided stair rail, fixed at its bottom end to a Ballycanoe newel post that looks like something pinched from a giants sewing room. The smart galley kitchen has laundry tucked at one end and extra storage at the other, and the loft makes for the quietest of bedrooms, an impressionist nest tucked into the eaves. The yard is leafy and private with a shed for the bikes. Its a diminutive house that doesnt feel small, and for the single professional or in-love couple, it really is picture book stuff. Reduced now by a whopping $50, 000!

Kingston ON Home for Sale

This handsome end unit red-brick townhouse in the Inner Harbour is a block from the river and a ten-minute walk from The Screening Room. The Elm Cafe and Pizza Monster are maybe a minute away. None of that matters, of course, if you cant bring yourself to leave the house. I move through these renovated and so-lovely rooms with a reverence, as if Ive stumbled upon a secular chapel at the end of a hike through towering firs. Which is odd, given the distinctly urban setting, but there is, I swear, a serenity to this one, a sense of good energies lavished for more than a century. I like particularly the angle of the south wall in the living and the dining room, the way the house widens towards the back, as if leading you into better understandings. I like the half step up into a kitchen that feels lifted from the Cotswolds, as does the skinny sunroom where you sit with your true love or your newspaper. I like, because I can be practical too, the fact that the furnace was installed just last year, and the AC this summer. There used to be four bedrooms but one has been converted into a splendid laundry, with enough built-in storage to hide treasures. One of the remaining three has a mat set at the centre of the floor and the idea is that you sit there and meditate, I think, or contort yourself into shapes I havent managed in a decade. Id wander instead, taking in the spa bathroom, the dark-framed windows and the sound of rain on the metal roof. I might build up into that attic somewhere down the road, just to access the view it would likely provide of the water, the swans in formation heading south from dark forest.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

At the acute corner of Plum and Chestnut, in the centre of Kingstons Fruit Belt neighbourhood, is a two-storey three-bedroom house wrapped in royal blue steel. The lots perimeter is marked with bracing fences of caged rock and longitudinal wooden slats. There is both limestone patio and interlocking brick. An arbor against the side of the house, beneath which you set your outdoor dining table, is like the ribcage of a ship. Design-wise, it is downtowns most interesting address. The main floor offers gracious high-ceilinged spaces with pale walls and dark hardwoods, and a separate living and dining room. The kitchen, with its granite counters and glass backsplash, its pebbled chimney and steel accents, is both warm and distinctly modern. There are three good bedrooms and a dreamy bathroom with a Victorian clawfoot tub and ivy climbing around the mirrors frame. There is a parking spot out back beyond the deck, and even a mudroom which would convert nicely into a main-floor bathroom. It is a unique and rather brilliant house in a unique and rather brilliant neighbourhood, just down the street from Friendship Park, and a ten-minute amble from the cores shops and restaurants.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

152 years ago someone pushed one limestone block against another and quietly began the process of building 145 James St. The world is different now, and so is the house, but it retains its modest, low-to-the-ground charm and the sense that another century and a half will see it sitting just as proudly. There are three of these attached cottages in a row and 145 is the most westerly of them. The setting sun warms its flank every afternoon. For the longest time I assumed wrongly that stables had been converted to living quarters. Or that they had been a barracks of some sort rather than smart discreet homes. Back then this was part of Charlesville, a spread out little village along the banks of the Cataraqui. Now, its firmly Inner Harbour, one of Kingstons best neighbourhoods and 145 is just a couple of blocks from Daughters General Store and The Elm Cafe. The interior, while showing plenty of the limestone, and sporting pine floors the colour of good toffee, has also been thoroughly modernised. There is an I-beam the colour of a Meyer lemon that divides the front sitting room from the back half, and holds everything in place, and a glass-sided stair rail, fixed at its bottom end to a Ballycanoe newel post that looks like something pinched from a giants sewing room. The galley kitchen is smart and modern, with laundry tucked at one end and extra storage at the other, and the loft makes for the quietest of bedrooms, like an impressionist nest tucked into the eaves. The yard is leafy and private with a shed for the bikes. Its a diminutive house that doesnt feel small, and for the single professional or in-love couple, it really is picture book stuff.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

403 Bagot St, right downtown, between Ordnance and Bay (Walk Score 96), is a classic detached four-bedroom red-brick, and makes for a special sort of family home, or smart investment (a fifth bedroom would be very straightforward). Formal and high-ceilinged living and family rooms, a separate dining room, then kitchen, then three-piece bathroom and laundry. The ground floor is a mile deep front-to-back. Upstairs is more of the same with the principal bedroom at the top of the back staircase. A 75K renovation to this room and the adjoining bathroom in 2019 have created an elegant, restful space quite separate from the darker hardwoods to be found elsewhere in the house. The shingles were replaced last year and the exterior gingerbread was repainted at the same time. There is a sweet fenced garden and ample parking beyond the back fence. Its not easy to find brick homes with this much space, and this much character (the plaster moldings! the stained glass transom! the classic iron radiators!) this close to the citys core. The Artillery Park Aquatic Centre is almost across the street, and Novel Idea is not even a five-minute stroll away.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

182 Clergy St East is a superbly-renovated and very stylish three-bedroom home just south of McBurney Park. A limestone and brick wall in the vaulted kitchen at the rear of the house extends into the garden. It feels like a magic trick, something almost too good to be true. The same might be said of the entire property with its tasteful colour schemes and top-notch updates, its drive-through garage and twin gas fireplaces. There is a grand piano in the living room so we're talking generous proportions, and there is an office on this level, too (which could just as easily be used as a guest room). Two of the three big bedrooms upstairs have views over that remarkable secret garden, and the third overlooks Clergy St and has direct access to the luxurious bathroom. The laundry room is up there as well. Step onto the porch and McBurney Park is immediately to your left and the downtown core is a couple of blocks in the other direction. I dont suppose there will be anything as well-located and well-finished this season. You are close to the university and the lake and the hospitals. And if on day one you should pull some celebratory champagne from the fridge, that kitchen ceiling is so far-off the cork wont even come close.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

The slab-on-grade bungalows along the upper reaches of Westdale Avenue remind me of houseboats, a series of low-slung and rather serene barges moored alongside the road, as if the road is a darkened river and well I can tell Ive lost most of you already. The point is theyre interesting places, and thats more than can be said for many houses (and what an awful thing that is for a real estate agent to say out loud). There is a distinct mid-century feel to 226 - all those just-right spaces connected in ways that maximize the square footage and collect light as hungrily as a pitcher plant traps lunch. There are three bedrooms along the southernmost wall, and the primary bedroom has its own ensuite bathroom. The kitchen has a really nice window out to the garden, and theres a deck back there too (of course it reminds me of a dock, or a diving board, something on which to work on a tan, or fine-tune the half-gainers). The detached garage is about twenty by fifteen and theres room for a bench along the windowed side, even with your car tucked out of the elements. The property is presently tenanted (thats why there are no inside pictures) but beyond 60 days, closing is flexible.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

403 Bagot St, right downtown, between Ordnance and Bay (Walk Score 96), is a classic detached four-bedroom red-brick, and makes for a special sort of family home, or smart investment (a fifth bedroom would be very straightforward). Formal and high-ceilinged living and family rooms, a separate dining room, then kitchen, then three-piece bathroom and laundry. The ground floor is a mile deep front-to-back. Upstairs is more of the same with the principal bedroom at the top of the back staircase. A 75K renovation to this room and the adjoining bathroom in 2019 have created an elegant, restful space quite separate from the darker hardwoods to be found elsewhere in the house. The shingles were replaced last year and the exterior gingerbread was repainted at the same time. There is a sweet fenced garden and ample parking beyond the back fence. Its not easy to find brick homes with this much space, and this much character (the plaster mouldings! the stained glass transom! the classic iron radiators!) this close to the citys core. The Artillery Park Aquatic Centre is almost across the street, and Novel Idea is not even a five-minute stroll away.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

66 Cherry St is a delightful two-bedroom detached house in the Fruit Belt downtown. It has a main-floor office that could be a third bedroom, and has been completely and tastefully renovated with pale hardwoods and stone counters atop the cabinets in the awesome galley kitchen. It has two new bathrooms and a private garden and a proper detached garage. It is the colour you imagine a summer sky to be, and its the house you were hoping might be out there for under 500K but then your partner said you had your head in the clouds again, and to get real, why dont you? Which got you wondering whether you wanted to live together after all and perhaps a place just for you made more sense and then along comes 66 Cherry and it all starts to feel like a really solid plan.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

This splendid two-storey midtown home, with its extravagant gardens, as well as its brilliant detached workshop (to me it screams in-law or secondary suite) and its terra cotta tile, its added sunroom at the back of the house, its stone-wrapped wood stove and the oak floors, its skylights and hangouts, its gracious archways and its kitchen full of pot-hangers and acres of countertop, a full-on lounge, is unlike anything you were daring to hope for this season. It is, in all the important ways, better than what has come before. There are two bedrooms, but until recently there were three, and a weekends work would make it that way again. There is a bathroom on each level. A walk-in pantry with laundry hook-up. The basement is set up for unexpected drop-ins, with a separate sleeping area. There is even (and this is a weird place to end, I realize) a vestibule up front in which to suit up for the fall.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

182 Clergy St East is a superbly-renovated three- (or four-) bedroom family home just south of McBurney Park. The towering limestone and brick wall in the vaulted kitchen at the rear of the house extends right out to the garden. It feels like a magic trick, something almost too good to be true. The same might be said of the entire property with its tasteful colour schemes and top-notch updates, its drive-through garage and twin gas fireplaces. There is a Steinway in the living room, which means we're talking generous proportions, and there is an office on this level, too (which could just as easily be used as a guest room). Two of the three big bedrooms upstairs have views over that remarkable secret garden, and the third overlooks Clergy St and has direct access to the bathroom. The laundry room is upstairs, with the machines hidden neatly behind folding doors. Step onto the porch and McBurney Park is immediately to your left and the downtown core is just a couple of blocks to the right. I really doubt there will be anything comparably well-located and well-finished this season. You are close to the university and the lake and the hospitals, and if on day one you pull some celebratory champagne from the fridge, that kitchen ceiling is so high the cork wont even come close to reaching it.

Sydenham ON Home for Sale

There are a lot of shopping lists that begin this way: A year-round cottage or home on deep, clean water twenty minutes from Kingston. Most of them have been kicking around for years, so difficult is that sort of property to actually find, especially at a decent price. It is the Alba truffle of homes, the ghost in the machine. 1243 Retreat Lane is a wood-clad bungalow set high above the deep waters of Sydenham Lake, amid emerald forest and just a ten-minute paddle from the village. A vaulted living room in knotty pine, with a grand fireplace and granite hearth, gives onto a skydeck that runs full width of the home. The modern kitchen is open to the living room, which means that no one gets isolated in there. Youre part of the celebration. The principal bedroom looks over the lake, so it connects to that same elevated deck, and morning coffee never tasted so good. An office at the back of the house could well serve as another bedroom in a pinch. The basement rec room walks out at grade to the lawns and the stairs down to the dock. There is another bedroom down there, tucked dark and quiet into the hillside, and a second bathroom. Ductless heat and AC will keep you comfortable all year long, whether its boating or skating youve come for. And while the detached double garage provides loads of storage for everything you could ever need, it could be readily converted to a grand bunkie, if the idea is to invite crowds.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

A very good property comprised of two two-bedroom units at the intersection of First and Kingscourt. That puts you just a block from the Memorial Centre grounds with its dog park and splash pad, its Sunday market and its yoga crowd. Head north and youll end up at the new high school. Its an area popular with young families, drawn by more affordable homes that arent too crowded together. 70 First Avenue is a little younger than many of its wartime neighbours as well (it was built in 1957) and with its sleek profile and its metal roof, it's a bit of a standout. Both apartments are stylish and bright and the upper unit has a third room that seems cheeky to call a bedroom, but makes good sense as a nursery or an office. Its also important to note that the lower unit sits nice and high out of the ground; theres nothing subterranean about the vibe here. On-site laundry hook-up is in a common area, and the parking is plentiful. Theres even a good garden off to one side that reminds me of the nearby vegetable allotments, a spot, maybe, to grow your own dinner. The renovations are fresh and 70 First Avenue is ready for you and/or your tenants.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

This splendid two-storey midtown home, with its extravagant gardens thick with backlit fern and hollyhocks the colour of rhubarb, as well as its detached workshop (to me it screams in-law or secondary suite) and its terra cotta tile, its added sunroom, its stone hearth above the wood stove and the oak floors, its skylights and hangout spots, its gracious archways and its kitchen full of pot-hangers and acres of countertop, a full-on lounge, is unlike anything you were daring to hope for this season. It is, in all the important ways, better than what has come before. There are two bedrooms, but until recently there were three, and a weekends work would make it that way again. There is a bathroom on each level. A walk-in pantry with laundry hook-up. The basement is set up for unexpected drop-ins, with a separate sleeping area. There is even (and this is a weird place to end, I realize) a vestibule up front in which to scan the mail for anything important and to kick off the work shoes.

Kingston ON Residential Income for Sale

64 Wellington St is a rather brilliant and vanishingly rare duplex (circa 1841, stucco over brick) situated across City Park from the university, and just up the street from Lake Ontario. The renovations are marvelous, the appliances high-end, and the garden an oasis. There is ample parking, abundant character, and nothing left to do or to worry about. It is perfect, it seems to me, as a downtown pied terre with the added benefit of upstairs income. The two one-bedroom units both feature solid-wood custom kitchens and exposed brickwork and clawfoot tubs. It is hard to choose between them, but if I lived there myself, I would write at a drafting table set middle of the room beyond the ground-floor kitchen, staring wistfully out at the interlocking brick patio, trying to unravel in words its dappled shade. I would write better sentences, I know I would. I would also sleep better than I ever have too, at the back of the house and far from the madding crowd, in that pine-ceilinged bedroom with the garden wrapped around it like a quilt. The parlour at the front of the house belongs in a magazine, or that Hardy novel youve been meaning to re-read. Some will view the property less romantically, perhaps installing their children, one above the other, while theyre at Queens, giving them every possible advantage. And fair enough, there are all sorts of futures possible here.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

I must at some point have described this house (because this isnt the first time weve listed this adorable spot) as being as sweet as a liquorice all-sort. I mean, just look at it. But I cant find that description this morning. So either I am becoming forgetful, or I am beginning to invent my own history. One feels cleverer than the other. Whichever it is, its a delight to serve up 66 Cherry St again, which has been properly and stylishly renovated since the last time. It is a cottage reimagined, a two-bedroom house with refinished floors the colour of toffee, and stone counters like the vanilla ice cream you can buy with the flecks of vanilla bean ground into it. There is a full bathroom on each level and an office on the main floor that could serve as a third bedroom. A gas fireplace in the living room, and laundry tucked away towards the back. The layout feels a miracle of thoughtful design, like a Swiss Army knife rewritten as a floor plan. You could sit out back in the private yard and try to figure out its magic on the back of a napkin, maybe, play-act a dinner theatre version of Einstein, or set up a complicated lab in the detached garage and try to unravel exactly how its still possible to list this much charming real estate in this downtown location for under five hundred thousand.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

I must at some point have described this house (because this isnt the first time weve listed this adorable spot) as being as sweet as a liquorice all-sort. I mean, just look at it. But I cant find that description this morning. So either I am becoming forgetful, or I am beginning to invent my own history. One feels cleverer than the other. Whichever it is, its a delight to serve up 66 Cherry St again, which has been properly and stylishly renovated since the last time. It is a cottage reimagined, a two-bedroom house with refinished floors the colour of toffee, and stone counters like the vanilla ice cream you can buy with the flecks of vanilla bean ground into it. There is a full bathroom on each level and an office on the main floor that could serve as a third bedroom. A gas fireplace in the living room, and laundry tucked away towards the back. The layout feels a miracle of thoughtful design, like a Swiss Army knife rewritten as a floor plan. You could hide away in the private garden and try to figure out its magic on the back of a napkin, maybe, play-act a dinner theatre version of Einstein, or set up a complicated lab in the detached garage and try to unravel exactly how its still possible to list this much charming real estate in this downtown location for under five hundred thousand.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

A comprehensively renovated Balsam Grove home with three or four bedrooms, its your call, three new bathrooms, a superb deck atop the double garage like something installed on a Mediterranean yacht, a garden ringed by towering cedars fit for a manor house, in-law suite potential, and some of the best refinished oak floors I have seen. Its a bewilderingly pretty, intensely bright, crisp mid-century house, with distant horizons and recent upgrades whichever way you turn. There is the sense you are in a gallery devoted to the house itself, which is some trick, but all those fresh white walls and that confident, modern air give the impression that maybe you needed a ticket to get in. There really should be reproductions of a house like this for sale at the Lego store. The appliances are all new, and the roof too, along with the eavestroughs and furnace. All the upgrades done so that you dont need to think about them. The lower level is completely finished and can be accessed through the attached garage. It would make smart living quarters for the gallery director, is my thought. A live-work sort of set-up. All of this in a part of the city convenient to the downtown core and the west end shops, as well as the Rideau Trail. There is a bus stop up near the corner that will run you wherever you need to be, not that youll ever want to leave.

Kingston ON Home for Sale

A two-and-a-half storey red-brick triplex in fabulous condition, with good tenants, a bonus studio suite used for overnight rentals, and the whole thing backing onto downtown tennis courts. The cap rate as its set up now is almost exactly 7%. Thats probably most of what you need to know, but it breaks down this way: There is a main-floor one-bedroom apartment with its own deck, and at the front of the house is a very pretty short-term suite. These could easily be combined. The second floor has a really pretty two-bedroom apartment that will be vacant in August, and up top is a one-bedroom unit in which to write the Great Canadian novel. Laundry for everyone is in the basement and there are three parking spots. Its an unusually fine combination of location, condition and income. If it was ours wed hardly change a thing, and isnt that exactly the sort of music you wanted to hear?