There’s something delightfully Toronto about walking up to what looks like a stately old Annex house, opening the front door, and suddenly finding yourself descending into the subway system. The northeast entrance to Spadina Station at Spadina Road and Kendal Avenue feels less like transit infrastructure and more like a secret passage hidden in plain sight. Nestled between towering century homes, the old brick dwelling blends so naturally into the streetscape that plenty of first-time visitors walk right past it without realizing it’s actually a TTC entrance. That subtle weirdness is part of its charm — a little piece of urban magic disguised as everyday architecture.
The building itself is known as the Norman B. Gash House, a Queen Anne Revival home built in 1899 for lawyer Norman B. Gash and designed by architect Robert Ogilvie. Originally a single-family residence, the house survived not one but two brushes with demolition. First, it was threatened during the Spadina Expressway debates of the 1960s and early 1970s. Then, even after the expressway was cancelled, Metropolitan Toronto planned to remove the house to make way for the new subway line. Instead, local residents and preservation advocates pushed to save it, arguing that demolishing the structure would damage the residential character of the Annex. Remarkably, the TTC agreed. The entire house was temporarily moved backward on rails while the station was excavated underneath it, then placed back on a new foundation with a subway entrance integrated into the ground floor.
Inside, most of the original residential layout has disappeared, replaced by turnstiles, stairwells, and the famously long underground corridors that connect the Line 1 and Line 2 platforms at Spadina Station. But even stripped of its domestic interior, the building still carries the feeling of an old Toronto house. Reddit users routinely describe it as feeling like a “secret James Bond base” or a hidden entrance known mostly to locals. One commenter joked that it’s the perfect escape hatch for bad first dates: simply say you live there, walk through the front door, and vanish into the TTC forever. Honestly, that may be the most Toronto survival strategy imaginable.
What makes the old Spadina entrance so memorable is that it represents a version of city-building Toronto doesn’t always choose. Instead of flattening history and replacing it with another anonymous concrete box, the city preserved a beautiful 19th-century home and quietly adapted it into something functional. The result is wonderfully eccentric: a subway entrance that still contributes to the rhythm and texture of the Annex streetscape more than a century after it was built. In a city constantly arguing about development, heritage, and identity, the Norman B. Gash House feels like proof that sometimes the most interesting solution is simply refusing to tear something beautiful down.
*Photos courtesy of Architectural Conservancy Toronto. We hold no rights.
If you lived at 15 Kendal Avenue, our fresh-to-market 3bed, 3bath property listing in The Annex, you’d be just a 3-minute walk to the Kendal entrance to the Spadina subway station!
We call it: A Blank Canvas With Edwardian Roots In Prime Annex, Steps To Jean Sibelius Square
Nestled on a quiet avenue of century homes surrounded by verdant mature trees filled with birdsong, this charming setting for domestic bliss is a pleasing counterpoint to the ‘Bright Lights Big City’ vibes of Bloor Street to the south. This home is located just far enough from the fray that you’ll enjoy instant access to solitude and repose, yet conveniently, you’re just 400 steps to the Spadina subway station and 800 steps to a Metro Grocer, a Shopper’s Drug Mart, or the Miles Nadal JCC.
Constructed in 1900, this gracious semi-detached 3-storey double-brick residence offers over 2,000 square feet above grade. Situated on an impressive 23.08-foot x 128-foot lot, this property shares a mutual drive with its neighbour to the north, and includes a semi-detached single-vehicle carport plus 2 tandem outdoor parking spaces.
Questions? Interested in a private viewing? Contact James Ormston (james@urbaneer.com) or Steven Fudge (steve@urbaneer.com)
Since 1989, I’ve steered my career through a real estate market crash and burn; survived a slow painful cross-country recession; completed an M.E.S. graduate degree from York University called ‘Planning Housing Environments’; executed the concept, sales & marketing of multiple new condo and vintage loft conversions; and guided hundreds of clients through the purchase and sale of hundreds of freehold and condominium dwellings across the original City of Toronto. From a gritty port industrial city into a glittering post-industrial global centre, I’ve navigated the ebbs and flows of a property market as a consistent Top Producer. And I remain as passionate about it today as when I started.
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