A TASTE OF EUROPE

This hand-painted Victorian home brings old-fashioned opulence to downtown Toronto

- Jean Grant

ARTIST EVE GORDON will never forget the grandiose European designs she saw during her summer in France in the 1970s. Her parents had sent her to do a French course in Montpellier; while on a biking tour around the countryside, she was amazed by the hand-painted walls and carved wooden mouldings in local churches, homes and gardens. "I felt like I belonged there," she says.

During university, Gordon began painting flowers. In 1976, she moved to Paris and displayed her whimsical oil paintings in several shows. On a visit back home in 1983, she went on a blind date and met her husband, the late investment dealer Crawford Gordon. Though she hated to leave Paris, she agreed to move to Toronto to be with him. They were married within six months.

In 1984, they found a red-brick Victorian in Rosedale, which a developer had divided into a triplex. For roughly $300,000, the Gordons bought a three storey section on the home's easternmost side, with bay windows and dramatic 25-foot ceilings. The primary bedroom takes up the second floor, and the Gordons' three kids had their bedrooms on the level above. (Her daughters, Chloe Gordon and Parris Morris, are the designers behind the fashion label Beaufille, and her son, Crawford, works in the investment industry.)