Decorating & Design

Inside A Whimsical Rosedale Home Bursting With Pattern & Color

Author: Iris Benaroia

Published on May 23, 2022

To summon the family to dinner, most of us holler fruitlessly as the potatoes turn to cold blobs. In Victoria Webster’s world, her dad would bang a gong, ushering a young Victoria and her four siblings to the table from all corners of the house — whether they were living in a castle in Scotland or a château in France. The houses were all happily eccentric, and Victoria loved them. “My parents would have a lizard or cockroach painted in places around the house, just for fun,” says Victoria. But when it came to the decorating, her mother, Madeleine, was a traditionalist with an exquisite eye. “She was into chintz. She loved shopping at Sotheby’s for Chippendale and Chinese antiques. I was lucky to grow up with beautiful china from Germany and lace from Ireland.”

In 2019, Victoria and her family — husband Gabe Gonda, vice-president of Sophi at The Globe and Mail, and sons Charlie, 15, Isaac, 13, Raphael, 8, and rescue dog Ruby — relocated back to Toronto’s leafy Rosedale neighborhood after six years in the Annex. Victoria was pining for ravine walks with her best friend, who lives a block away. Enter nip-and-tuck-style design surgeon Colette van den Thillart (pictured above). Famous for her confident, elegant and often colorful aesthetic, Colette designs interiors that are an exacting blend of old and new, with signature style moves like her lacquered ceilings, curvy-shaped rugs and unexpected wallpapers. She calls the look “global-ish,” for its pulling together of disparate things. “It’s stylistically diverse, layered and, I hope, unique,” says the designer.

Scroll down to see inside this gorgeous Rosedale home!