Property Details
- Address: 226 Gerrard Street East
- HCD Area: Cabbagetown Southwest HCD
- Property Description: Attached middle of 5
- Building Name: originally numbered 188 Gerrard (renumbered in 1890)
- Original Builder: Samuel Parker
- Original Occupancy Date: 1870
- Original Owner: Parker, Samuel
- Original Occupant: Allan, Charles
- Land Use: Residential
- Building Type: Residential
- Original Architectural Style: Georgian
- Height: 2 storeys
- Materials: Brick
- Doors: Double, half-glazed, stained, transom. Stone steps
- Windows: Victorian sash
- Roof: Asphalt
- Secondary Structures: None
- Landscape Features: Cast iron vintage fence
- Trees: Gingko planted by city in 2016
- Plaques: Cabbagetown Tour of Homes
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This house–the middle of a row of five–was built in 1870, before the era of indoor plumbing. Early plans show outhouses at the rear. But this block became a showcase for indoor gas lighting, connected to a newly installed line from the Consumer’s Gas plant at Front and Parliament. It was wired to the electric grid in about 1910 and had water connection installed from a main that was laid under Seaton Street.
Heating originally came from fireplaces with flues that ran through the house, but a gas furnace was installed in 1936.
In the 1940s 226 Gerrard was owned by Eva Comars, the daughter of an immigrant from Greece who ran a restaurant on Yonge Street. She became a widow during the Second World War and raised three boys in the house.
She sold the house to relatives, Chris Poulakos, a maintenance engineer and his wife Despina, in 1955. They had two children and rented an upper room and a basement apartment to tenants. It was sold to its current owners in 1972 and returned to a single family home.
The home’s Greek Revival interior has been restored to its original appearance and the house has twice been on the Cabbagetown Tour of Homes.