In 2014, Toronto architects Adam Thom and Katja Aga Sachse Thom — life partners and co-founders of the firm Agathom — received a commission for a bespoke home in Thornhill, an upscale neighbourhood north of the city. The clients, a retired couple, were clear about what they did and didn’t want. “They said, ‘We don’t have a cottage. We will never have a cottage. But we would like to build a kind of cottage in the city,’” Adam recalls. They envisioned a sophisticated abode, though, not a rustic one. “They weren’t picturing a stony, goofy fireplace,” says Adam, “or a wall with a deer head on it.”
Plenty of wood went into the home, named Dove House, from the white oak floors to the white birch cladding on the walls…
