112-140 Cowan Avenue / 1317 King Street West is a 2-storey-plus-basement Edwardian apartment building located at the southwest corner of King Street West and Cowan Avenue in Parkdale. 112-140 Cowan Avenue / 1317 King Street West was designed by architect Joseph Hunt Stanford in 1909 and is known as the Beresford Apartments. 

112-140 Cowan Avenue was one of the first purpose-built apartment buildings in the Parkdale neighbourhood of Toronto and is one of the oldest surviving purpose-built apartment buildings in the entire City of Toronto. The prominent balconies are particularly unique within the typology of early apartment buildings in Toronto. 

Joseph Hunt Stanford:

The Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada: 1800-1950 provides the following biography of Joseph Hunt Stanford: 

"Joseph Hunt Stanford — a remarkably prolific architect, dramatist and poet active in Toronto from 1904 until 1922 when he was joined by his son, Leo Hunt Stanford, in a partnership. Born in Tipton, Co. Staffordshire, England on 9 November 1871, he attended the Onslow School of Art and studied building construction at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London. He trained as a junior draftsman and assistant in the London office of John S. Chapple in c. 1890-92, for Thoday & Son, Architects of Cambridge, and as a draftsman and estimator for R. Pickens in London. Stanford emigrated to Canada in 1902 and settled in Toronto where he worked as chief assistant to James A. Harvey in 1902-04. He then opened his own office in Toronto in 1904, and specialised in the design of private houses in the Annex, Parkdale and Rosedale neighbourhoods. He was among the very first architects in the city to develop prototypes for three storey walk-up apartment buildings, for which his design of the King Edward Apartments on Jarvis Street (1905) is among the earliest examples. By 1914 he had completed more than 40 commercial and residential projects in Toronto. He was nominated as a member of the Royal Inst. of British Architects (London) in 1911, and his application was endorsed by Francis S. Baker, FRIBA, a prominent architect in Toronto.

In late 1914 he curtailed his professional activity and went to France to serve during WWI with the 201st Light Infantry, and with the 20th Canadian Mobile Artillery & Railway troops. He returned to Canada in 1919 and resumed his practise, and invited his son Leo H. Stanford to join him in a partnership in 1922. Much of his early work employed a variety of eclectic English classical styles, best seen in the St. Charles Court Apartments (1914-15), one of many commissioned by Harry & John Hutson, a team of developers and builders. He was also a regular contributor of designs for standard detached house plans replicated in dozens of locations throughout Toronto. These designs, called the “Weekly House Suggestion“, were published in regular issues of the Contract Record & Engineering Review [Toronto] in 1923 and 1924.

Stanford was also a well-known poet and author of “Miriam and Other Poems” (1906), and he took a keen interest in 19th C. British literature and was considered an authority on the work of Charles Dickens. From 1924 to 1928 he served as vice-president of the Toronto Dickens Fellowship (the largest Dickens organization in the world outside of London), and as president of that organization from 1929 to 1933. Stanford died in Toronto on 3 October 1935."

A Brief History of Apartment Buildings in Toronto:

Communal living (boarding houses, barracks, etc.) have existed in Toronto since the city's inception in the late 18th century. However, the first purpose-built apartment buildings - originally known as apartment houses - did not emerge until 1899.  


The emergence of purpose-built apartment buildings within Toronto was due to both their development and proliferation in other North American cities, as well as due to a rapid increase in the population of Toronto within the first 20 years of the 20th century that outpaced the availability of single-family dwellings. 


1899 saw the issuance of the building permit for the St. George Mansions at the southwest corner of Harbord Street and St. George Street. The St. George Mansions were completed by 1904 and were considered Toronto's first purpose-built apartment building. Richard Dennis notes in Toronto's First Apartment-House Boom: An Historical Geography, 1900-1920 (1989) that the earliest apartment buildings in Toronto were "large-scale luxury blocks" rather than middle-class efficiency apartments. This holds true for the early history of 21 Sussex Avenue / 380 Huron Street, as the building contained both luxurious suites and numerous amenities for its residents. 


Dennis (1989) further notes that "by 1907, when the first list of apartment houses was published in the city directory, eight buildings were listed" (14). Post-1907 saw a steady increase in the number of apartment buildings within Toronto alongside a building boom of apartments in the 1910s, albeit the post-1907 buildings were often less luxurious, smaller, and more utilitarian in scheme. By 1918, City of Toronto Directories listed at least 290 apartment buildings within the City of Toronto. 


ERA Architects note in their Toronto Building Typology Study: The Pre-War Apartment Building - Church-Wellesley Village (2018) that early apartment buildings in Toronto were often constructed on corner lots (including both streets and laneways). This trend holds true for 21 Sussex Avenue / 380 Huron Street, which abuts a laneway along its west elevation. ERA Architects additionally note in their Building Typology Study (2018) that many early apartment buildings had their first (ground) floor half a storey above street level, as to allow basement suites to receive increased light. This design trend is also evident at 21 Sussex Avenue / 380 Huron Street. 


By 1912, purpose-built apartment buildings in Toronto were the subject of significant controversy due to their alleged facilitation of immorality (partly due to their appeal to single individuals who could live on their own in the units); privacy and sanitation related concerns; the emergence of landlord legislation; perceived risks to property values in the surrounding area; a loss of neighbourhood greenspace with the larger building footprints occupying most of the lot; and societal bias towards renters versus owners. Calls emerged to prohibit the construction of new apartment buildings within pre-established residential areas. Eventually, Toronto City Council passed Bylaw 6061 to prohibit the construction of apartment buildings on specific streets (namely established streets that mostly contained houseform dwellings), albeit developers could still appeal on a case-by-case basis for an exemption. Another bylaw was passed to limit the size of the buildings and mandate a set amount of outdoor space on the lot. The Chief Medical Officer of Toronto - Dr. Charles Hastings - also became involved in the debate with a public health focus on the tenement-like conditions in some Toronto apartment buildings. In 1911-1912, Dr. Hastings testified to Toronto City Council and had particular concerns over overpopulation, poor ventilation, the risk of fire, and some building's internal rooms having no windows.



Controversy later emerged over Bylaw 6061, namely that the prohibition of new buildings was causing rents in existing buildings to skyrocket with rents increasing by 10% to 35%. A collapse in the property market in 1913-1914 followed by the advent of World War I resulted in a shift of public focus away from the construction of new apartment buildings in Toronto. During World War I, a handful of apartment buildings were constructed in Toronto, followed by an increase after the war that peaked with a building boom in 1928. However, construction of new apartment buildings declined over the following years due to the Great Depression. Notably, the construction of new apartment buildings in many areas required individual bylaws to be passed allowing an exemption for each site. Bylaw 6061 was altered in 1941 on the advice of the City Solicitor who considered it "was illegal for the Council to authorize violations of residential bylaws by passing amending by-laws, if such action was taken for the benefit of private individuals, and not in the general public interest." Dennis (1989) further discerns that post-1941 the practice continued but "whole blocks or streets, rather than individual lots, were specified whenever an exemption was made."


Following World War II, the first apartment high-rise buildings were built in Toronto in the 1950s to 1970s. Condominiums first emerged in Toronto in the 1970s and 1980s.   


Recent Sale:

In 2022, 112-140 Cowan Avenue / 1317 King Street West was listed for sale and sold as a development opportunity.

(Research by Adam Wynne)

• Architect - Joseph Hunt Stanford  <-- More buildings by this architect.