Small build, big headache: Toronto fourplex faced a wall of red tape

From the sidewalk, the fourplex that Nigel Churcher, a veteran Toronto art director and set designer, built over the past several years fits into the cheerful eclecticism of Little Italy specifically because it doesn’t quite fit in.

The thoroughly rebuilt south half of a century-old Shaw Street semi, just north of College, has all sorts of elements that give it the kind of character that adds to the character of a character street. The three stacked archways facing Shaw (one an expansive window, one covering a small porch and one enclosing a first-floor side entrance) are reminiscent, according to architect Gregory Rubin, of “a campanile, the layered arches in Italian bell towers.”