34 Rowanwood Ave: A 1913 Brick Building Turned Six-Suite Condo

34 Rowanwood Avenue is not a condo building in the usual sense. It is a brick building from 1913 on a short Rosedale-Moore Park street, converted and registered as a condominium in 2006, with a handful of suites and a tennis club next door. Buying here is much closer to buying part of an old house than buying into a tower. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

An old building with a new condominium

The dates tell the story. Toronto Life describes 34 Rowanwood as a brick building put up in 1913, while the condominium corporation was registered in 2006. In other words, an existing early-20th-century building was turned into a condominium nearly a century after it was built.

That matters for how you judge it. The bones, meaning the brick, the structure and the room proportions, are old. The condominium documents, the reserve fund and possibly some of the systems date from the conversion. When you read the reserve fund study, look at which parts of the building were replaced in 2006 and which were kept.

Sources do not agree on how many suites there are. The building profile says six, while Toronto Life described a seven-unit building. Suites in a conversion are sometimes combined or counted differently, so ask for the registered plan to see exactly how the corporation is divided.

What the suites are like

The best published example is a second-floor suite that Toronto Life featured. It had about 1,300 square feet, three bedrooms, one bathroom, a sunroom and roughed-in plumbing that could allow a second bathroom. It came with one parking space and, according to the article, the only private terrace in the building, overlooking the Toronto Lawn Tennis Club.

That gives you a sense of the format. Suites here are full-floor or near-full-floor apartments with house-like room counts, not compact one-bedrooms. The trade-off is the usual one for a building of this age: bathroom counts, closet space and kitchen layouts reflect how the building has been renovated over time, not a modern plan.

That feature is from 2015, so the suite may have changed since. Every suite here will have its own renovation history, and that history is what you are really buying. Ask what was done, when, and whether permits were pulled.

Two practical points apply to almost any conversion of this age. First, I found no mention of an elevator, so assume stairs unless the listing says otherwise, and think about whether that works for you in ten years. Second, sound travels differently in a century-old brick building than in a modern concrete tower, so visit when the neighbours above are likely to be home.

Rowanwood Avenue and the tennis club

Rowanwood is a short residential street just east of Yonge in the Rosedale-Moore Park area, and the Toronto Lawn Tennis Club sits right beside it. For some owners, looking over courts and greenery instead of another building is the main attraction.

The street is quiet, but Yonge Street is close, with its shops, restaurants and services between Rosedale and Summerhill. That is an unusual pairing: a house-scale street with a busy main street a few minutes away. The data panel on this page shows transit, Walk Score, food and parks.

The street mixes detached houses with small multi-unit buildings like this one, and the houses on Rowanwood appear regularly in Toronto real estate coverage. If you are weighing a suite here against a house nearby, that comparison is worth making carefully, because the gap in price is usually far larger than the gap in living space.

Running a corporation of six or seven owners

Management is listed as Prohouse Management, so this is not a self-managed building. Even so, with so few owners, the board is effectively the owners themselves, and every decision about the roof, the brick or the boiler is a conversation among a handful of neighbours.

That can be an advantage. Small buildings can move quickly and keep costs lean. The risk is concentration: a large repair is split only six or seven ways, and a single owner who does not pay their share has a real effect on the budget.

Renovations also need more care in a building like this. Changes to plumbing, walls or floors can affect the suite below, so expect the corporation to want details and approvals before work starts. Ask to see the renovation rules before you plan a kitchen or a second bathroom.

Pricing and fees

There were no suites for sale when I wrote this, and with six or seven suites, a sale is an occasional event. The automatic panel on this page shows aggregate data where there is enough of it to publish, but in practice each suite here is valued on its own size, condition and outdoor space.

The fee covers common elements, heat, air conditioning, building insurance and water. Including heat and cooling is useful in an older brick building, where those costs can be high, and it makes your monthly budget more predictable. Hydro is not listed, so ask what the owner pays. Also ask for the property tax bill, which in this area can be a significant part of the monthly cost.

For a suite of this size in Rosedale-Moore Park, the honest comparison is with nearby houses and other small conversions, not with new condos. You are paying for the street and the room count, and accepting an older building in return.

If you want me to value a specific suite against those alternatives, book a call.

Building specifications

Amenities at 34 Rowanwood Condos

There are no shared amenities beyond permission to barbecue. What you get instead is a quiet street, a tennis club next door and the space of a house floor.

Jatin’s honest take on 34 Rowanwood Condos

34 Rowanwood Condos — frequently asked questions

Looking at Yorkville, the Annex and Midtown more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.