Bedford Glen, 1555 Avenue Rd: A 1980 Garden Condo North of Lawrence

Bedford Glen is the building I show buyers who are leaving a house in Bedford Park or Lawrence Park and do not want a glass tower. It is a low, 1980 Cadillac Fairview building set back from Avenue Road on landscaped grounds, with suites big enough to take real furniture and a fee that covers your hydro. You are buying space and setting, not new finishes. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A low building on a garden site, not a tower on a corner

Most condos on Avenue Road sit right at the sidewalk. Bedford Glen does the opposite. The building is only six storeys, it runs back from the road along Sylvan Valleyway, and the land around it is treated as a garden rather than a driveway.

Listing descriptions over the years describe roughly seven acres of landscaped grounds, footbridges, and a ravine feature with a waterfall and a koi pond. A Toronto Life feature on a suite here described a garden walkway linking the buildings and ending at a pond under a large willow. That setting is the reason people buy here, and it is also a cost the corporation carries every year.

The low height matters too. Six storeys means fewer people per elevator, a quieter lobby and a feel closer to a garden apartment than a high-rise. Buyers coming out of a detached house usually find that easier to adjust to.

Suites sized for people downsizing from a house

Suites here run from about 605 to roughly 1,685 square feet. That upper end is far larger than what new Toronto buildings deliver, and it is why the building attracts owners who are moving out of family homes with dining tables, pianos and art they want to keep.

Some ground-level suites are laid out over two floors with private patios, which listing agents describe as townhouse-style living inside the building. If you want a door onto the garden and stairs inside your own unit, ask specifically for those plans, because they come up rarely.

Built in 1980, the suites reflect the era: separate kitchens rather than open islands, real dining rooms, more closets and a more defined room layout. Many have been renovated, some have not. Price the renovation into anything original, and check whether past work in the suite was done with the board’s approval.

What the fee covers, and why it looks high

Condos.ca lists the fee as covering common elements, heat, hydro and water. Including hydro is uncommon and it changes the comparison. You will not get a separate electricity bill, so the true monthly cost is closer to the fee than it would be in a newer building where every suite is metered.

Recent listing descriptions also mention air conditioning, a cable package and one exclusive-use parking space and locker as part of the fee. I have not confirmed those against the corporation’s documents, so treat them as something to verify in the status certificate rather than a promise.

Large suites plus utilities plus seven acres of grounds add up. In absolute dollars the fees here are high. The real test is the fee per square foot after you add back the hydro and parking you would pay elsewhere, and whether the reserve fund is keeping pace with a building now more than 45 years old.

Daily life at Avenue Road and Lawrence

The building sits in Bedford Park-Nortown, just north of the Avenue Road and Lawrence intersection. Day to day that means the Avenue Road strip of independent cafes, bakeries and boutiques within walking distance, and the Pusateri’s grocery at Avenue and Lawrence that listing agents mention for this address almost every time.

It is a residential, established part of the city. The streets around it are mostly detached houses, and Avenue Road itself is a busy arterial, so suites facing the road and suites facing the grounds are very different experiences. If quiet matters to you, ask which way the windows face before you book a showing. Ground-floor garden suites trade road noise for foot traffic along the walkways, which some owners love and others do not.

Transit, schools and walkability are shown in the data panel on this page. My only comment is practical: most owners here drive, and the included parking is part of why the building works for them.

Pricing: older space at a lower price per square foot

Condos.ca puts the building’s average at about $692 per square foot. That number reflects age and size. Big suites in older buildings almost always trade at a lower rate per foot than small new suites, so do not read it as a bargain by itself.

Supply is thin. At the time of writing there was a single active sale listing and no rentals, which means I will not quote its price or fee here. With only a handful of resales a year, every comparison needs to be made against the right suite type and floor, ideally with the two-storey and garden-level plans treated separately.

If you are weighing this against a newer Avenue Road building, compare total monthly cost, not the fee line alone. Hydro, heat and water are in here. In most buildings built after 2005 they are not. For a sold report on this building, request it here.

Building specifications

Amenities at Bedford Glen

The amenity list is modest by modern standards, a sauna, a party room, a meeting room and, according to listings, a squash court and golf practice area. The grounds are the real amenity here; owners use the gardens and walkways the way people in newer towers use a rooftop terrace.

Jatin’s honest take on Bedford Glen

Bedford Glen — frequently asked questions

Looking at York Mills, Don Mills, Lawrence Park, Bathurst Manor and midtown-north Toronto more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.