Urban Diplomat Advice

Urban Diplomat

A few members of my condo board read about that King West building’s plan to institute a $15 monthly fee for residents with dogs (to cover extra cleaning costs, supposedly), and now they’re floating the idea of putting one in place in our building. The dozen or so dogs that live here—including my own—have never made any trouble or caused any messes. This seems like a blatant cash grab. What can we do about it? —Barking Mad, Corktown

I may be biased (full disclosure: yours truly has a shih tzu named Adonis), but what your condo board is considering is ludicrous. Whether they’re human or canine, condo residents are bound to cause wear and tear—and singling out one group to pay an extra maintenance fee smacks of calculated opportunism. Should your building post an official notice announcing the rule, you and the rest of the pro-pooch lobby will have 30 days to ask for a meeting and challenge the fee. If your powers of persuasion fail to sway the board—or your building’s management—it may be time to get a condo lawyer involved. The new revenue stream will seem less seductive when they’re facing a costly legal battle.

Dear Urban Diplomat, My friend became a dad six months ago, and every time I suggest a get-together, he insists on doing something babyfriendly. Last week, the three of us went to a Jays game; my friend assured me his son would nap in the Bjorn for the duration and we’d have plenty of time to catch up. But we barely saw each other—he had to keep getting up for walks around the stadium, because the kid wouldn’t quit screaming. I miss the good old days when there was no infant tagging along. How do I get my pal to ditch Junior every once in a while? —Two Men and a Baby, Bloorcourt

First of all: wow. How old are you? I assume, since you can read and write, you’re not a preschooler, so stop behaving like you just dropped your ice cream cone. Parenting means making sacrifices, and of course your pal will prioritize the needs of his tiny, fragile child over yours. Is the sound of infantile wailing grating? Sure. Could and should your friend take a night off from parenting every so often? Absolutely (for his sake, not yours). But this is a short-term problem: the baby will eventually mature out of his crying fits. You, I’m not so sure.

Dear Urban Diplomat, After waiting months for a reservation, my wife and I snagged a table at a popular upscale restaurant downtown. The meal was scrumptious, but I could barely savour it because our server’s vocal fry was a constant source of irritation. Seriously, she sounded like a defective carburetor. I think that quality establishments should be more rigorous when selecting front-of-house staff. Should I lodge a formal complaint? —Resto-ranter, Leaside

Wait staff are already policed on just about everything: their hair, their clothes, their weight, not to mention the words that come out of their mouths. Thinking you have some say in the timbre of those words makes you part of the problem. If you really can’t stand the minor annoyances that arise from interacting with people, do yourself (and your potential future servers) a favour and order in.

Send your questions to the Urban Diplomat at urbandiplomat@torontolife.com

The Penny Savers

Kevin Wallace and Grace McClure kept a student lifestyle on adult incomes, and wound up with the perfect fixer-upper

The Owners Kevin Wallace, 29, sales manager at a start-up, and Grace McClure, 28, content marketer at a start-up

The Place A 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom row house at Geary and Delaware North

The Price

$802,000

The Closing Date

December 4, 2017

The Backstory

GraCe: In 2015, Kevin and I had both finished university and found full-time jobs, making a combined $150,000 a year, but were still accustomed to a student lifestyle—waiting for the discount night at Pizza Pizza, that sort of thing.

Kevin: We lived in a basic one-bedroom at College and Crawford. Our rent was $1,675 a month. We never upgraded to a nicer apartment or bought a car, so we ended up saving a lot.

GraCe: We never thought we’d be able to afford a house. Then, in 2016, I saw a listing for a rundown place at Queen and Shaw for $499,000. We didn’t want it, but the price made us realize we could maybe do this, and we started searching for real.

Kevin: We drew up a lofty wish list: west end, garage, fireplace, not a condo, and with a basement apartment to rent out. We set a budget of $500,000 but realized that was hardly enough for a closet, so we stretched it to the low $900,000s.

The Buy

GraCe: Last November, we found a three-bedroom on Delaware near Dupont, listed at $699,000. It was 105 years old but in good shape, and it had a basement apartment. Luckily, the listing photos were dark and blurry, and there was no open house, so we figured it wouldn’t attract much interest. We offered $103,000 over asking and won. We dipped into our savings, and I took out $25,000 from my RRSP for the down payment. By putting 20 per cent down, we avoided CMHC loan insurance. We got a 30-year mortgage through an alternative lender, not a bank, at a rate of 2.69 per cent. We moved in this past December and started renting out the basement in February, for $1,100 a month, which makes a nice dent in our $2,600 mortgage payments. We’re paying less now per month than we did as renters.

Kevin: We’ve retiled floors, replaced cabinets and appliances, and updated the staircase. We’re doing it ourselves with the help of family, so it’s been slow, but we’re just happy to be here.

GraCe: Things are still in deconstruction mode, but we’re chipping away to create the charm we wanted. We’re fine with the slow pace—we have no intention of moving for a long time.

Pierre Barneto in the living room of his parents’ house

Young, restless

Pierre Barneto didn’t see his friends for six months while he worked two jobs. It paid off: he moves into his townhouse this fall

The Backstory

I was studying kinesiology at York, but I wanted to do something more hands-on, so at 19, I dropped out to study to become a heating technician. I got a job as an insertion operator working from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m., five days a week, plus the occasional six-hour shift on Saturdays, making $14 per hour. It was hard work—I’d sleep for four hours and wake up with a headache from the lack of sleep. I worked a second job, too, at a rental equipment company, and saved by living with my parents, but I wanted my own place.

There were other sacrifices. At one point, my friends went to Montreal, but I couldn’t get time off. It happened again when they planned a weekend camping trip. I went without seeing them for six months at one point, and when I did, it was for 15 minutes at a Tim Hortons, because I had to rush to my shift. Eventually, they started making plans without me. By late 2016, I had saved $55,000, so I quit one of my jobs so I could see my friends again, and I started looking for a place. I own a golden retriever, Mitzi, and wanted something pet-friendly, with at least two bedrooms and two

The Owner Pierre Barneto, 24, HVAC technician

The Place

A 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom pre-construction townhouse in Stoney Creek

The Price

$434,900

The Closing Date

November 20, 2019 bathrooms, in case I decide to rent the extra space. I set my budget at $440,000, and looked in Milton, Brampton and Hamilton.

The Buy

This past February, I came across a three-storey pre-construction townhouse in Stoney Creek for $434,900. It met all my requirements, and there was an off-leash dog park down the road. I realized that a decent house in this market won’t wait. A buyer will always come along. So when I went to the sales office, I signed on the spot. I wanted to put down more than 20 per cent to avoid CMHC, so I cashed in my savings and borrowed from my RRSP and TFSA. Recently, I got promoted—I now make $65,000— so I’ll add another lump sum before the deal closes in 2019 to bring the down payment to $100,000. At my current rate, my 25-year mortgage comes to $2,200 a month. I’m going to continue living with my parents until then. In three years, I’ll renovate and rent out the basement. Getting here wasn’t easy, but I own a house! And now I see my friends twice a week and can keep up to date with their lives.

The Hustler

Safras Lafeer chose burgers over steaks, saved his cash and managed to buy three properties over eight years

The Backstory

I’ve wanted to own a house ever since Grade 9. While I was studying finance at Ryerson, I lived at home and worked full-time hours doing tech support and sales for Rogers. My parents didn’t ask me to pay rent, but I’d still give them $300 to $500 a month. I kept other expenses low. When I would go out, I’d tell my friends I had only $5 to spend. They still tease me about that. I never did the things people typically do in their 20s: I didn’t party or own a car—though I’d always coveted a Mercedes—and I certainly didn’t go out for steak dinners. My friends and I would grab two Junior Chicken sandwiches from McDonald’s instead. I never thought of it as a sacrifice. I just thought, “This is what I want, and this is how I’m going to achieve it.”

I believe in investing my money and using debt to leverage my assets. That’s why I’ve never opened a savings account. At 19, I bought a $260,000 pre-construction condo at Don Mills and Eglinton. I was committed to putting 20 per cent down by the time it was completed four years later, which would give me time to earn the funds.

The Owner Safras Lafeer, 27, real estate agent The Place A three-bedroom, two-bathroom semi at Danforth and Donlands

The Price

$571,000

The Closing Date

September 4, 2014 I was in school for almost six years, during which I rarely had a weekend off, between work and classes. I operated on five hours of sleep and napped whenever I had the chance. By the time I graduated, I’d paid off the condo.

The Buy

I was working as a salesman for Pearson, an education company, so I bought a three-bedroom semi in East York, where I grew up. I used $30,000 in cash, two credit cards and a student line of credit to cover the 10 per cent down payment. I was making good money, but I could only qualify for a 30-year mortgage through alternative financing, at 3.99 per cent. I moved into the semi in late 2014, then sold my condo for $341,000, which paid off all my debts. Then I bought a bungalow in East York—a four-bedroom for $745,000—and rented out its two units, for a total of $3,400 a month. I’m now paying off two mortgages, for the semi and the bungalow, which total $5,000 a month. My income is north of $200,000, so I can comfortably cover the payments. After so many years of sacrifice, I treated myself: I bought a Mercedes C-300.

The Good Son

Scott Symington put away 10 per cent of every paycheque, limited his vacations and eventually bought a four-bedroom detached

The Backstory

Near the end of high school, I read The Wealthy Barber and began putting aside 10 per cent of my earnings. I never viewed it as a sacrifice, because I had a long-term plan in mind. I would see people blow cash on unnecessary things like a second pair of shoes, just because they were nice. I never did that. I kept my spending low and rarely went on trips. My only major expenses were $750 to help fix the shingles on my parents’ roof and $2,000 for a used GMC Sierra. Mind you, I still went out to eat on occasion and even travelled to Las Vegas with my family. After high school, I continued living with my parents in Whitby while I studied to become a maintenance technician. I graduated in 2014 at 19 and got a full-time job at a water plant in Pickering. I decided that when I moved out, it would be into a place I owned rather than to help pay off someone else’s mortgage. I wasn’t in a rush, but when the market started to cool last summer, it felt like a good time to buy. I enlisted a family friend who is a real estate agent. I had more than $65,000 saved up by June 2017— enough for a decent-sized down payment and

The Owner Scott Symington, 23, maintenance operator The Place A 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom detached bungalow in Oshawa

The Price

$378,000

The Closing Date

September 29, 2017 some buffer room in case finances got tight—and my budget was $400,000. I wanted something close to work, ideally in Durham where prices are lower than anything closer to Toronto. I lived in a townhouse until I was nine years old and could always hear the neighbours, so I was set on a detached. A second bathroom was another item on my list, because it increases resale value.

The Buy

I looked at a few houses every week and eventually came across a four-bedroom bungalow a 25-minute drive from work. The sellers had dropped their asking price from $430,000 to $380,000, and they told me they had just bought another house, so I knew they were motivated to sell. I was approved for a 25-year mortgage at 2.54 per cent, offered $370,000 and, after a bit of negotiating, got it. I moved in last September. It was a big change from living with my parents to paying for everything, including $1,700 a month for the mortgage, but I haven’t had to renovate, so my expenses are low. I plan on staying long-term. The extra space means I can stay put if I start a family.

Mr. Thrifty

Martin Willemsma gave up nights out at the bar, lived with his parents and purchased a three-bedroom with a rentable basement

The Backstory

After finishing my mechanical engineering degree in 2012, I was lucky to get a job in my field, eventually making between $70,000 and $80,000 per year. I paid my parents $500 a month to live in their Brampton basement and saved much of my salary for a down payment.

I used to go out with my friends a lot, hitting the bars downtown and dropping $8 or more per beer. But as the years wore on, my friends started staying home more often, and it became easier to save. My older sister and her husband own three detached houses across the GTA, and I figured I’d try to follow their lead. At the end of 2017, the market dipped slightly, so I made my move. Based on my savings, I was eligible for a mortgage in the $300,000 to $350,000 range, but if my dad co-signed, I could afford at least $575,000. A must-have for me was a basement apartment I could rent out.

My agent and I looked at six houses in Brampton. I really liked a three-bedroom that was only a two-minute walk from the Heart Lake Conservation Area. Because I’m a mechanical

The Owner

Martin Willemsma, 27, mechanical engineer

The Place

A three-bedroom, one-bathroom house in Brampton

The Price

$565,000

The Closing Date

November 27, 2017 engineer, I look at the structure and bones of houses, and I could tell this one didn’t have any major problems.

The Buy

I scrounged up the $38,000 down payment by combining my savings and $25,000 I got from drawing on my RRSP. I was approved for a five-year fixed term on a 25-year mortgage, which will cost me $2,700 a month. I made an offer, conditional on inspection, of $7,000 under asking, which the seller accepted.

I moved in the day after closing. After all the fees and expenses, I had about $9,000 in my account, so I have to be extra conscious about my spending. I’ve added a second bathroom, and I’m putting a few thousand into renovating the basement so I can rent it out. I’m doing the work myself on the weekends and aim to have it all done in the next month or so. After that, I should have more disposable income. I’ve taken a leap of faith that nothing bad will happen until I get the basement to a rentable state. My fingers are crossed.

The Long view

Sean Cooper worked three jobs, swore off lavish trips, bought a bungalow and paid it off in three years

The Backstory

I grew up in the Beaches, and during university, I lived in my mother’s house rent-free. I had three part-time jobs while studying, so I was able to graduate debt-free in 2009 with money in the bank and start paying my mom $600 a month for rent. In 2010, I got a full-time job at a pension consulting firm downtown, and on weekends I worked at No Frills. I was busy all the time, but I viewed the sacrifice as short-term pain for long-term gain. In December 2014, for instance, I made almost $14,000 as a freelance finance writer, but the workload nearly killed me. Including my other jobs, I worked 100 hours a week and completed more than 70 assignments. I even missed my family’s holiday party. Meanwhile, I rarely ate out or bought clothes, and when I’d travel, it would be to Niagara Falls instead of somewhere exotic.

The Buy

I started searching for a house after graduating. I looked for a detached house with a finished basement that I could rent out. I also wanted something close to transit. I’m not very handy,

The Owner

Sean Cooper, 33, mortgage agent

The Place

A 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom detached house at Kingston and Danforth

The Price

$425,000

The Closing Date

August 1, 2012 so I avoided fixer-uppers. I made a bunch of offers and lost each one, and was ready to give up when I found a place at Kingston and Danforth that had everything I wanted. The seller was holding back bids until an offer date, so I made a bully offer of $25,000 over asking, and the seller accepted. I had $170,000 saved, enough for 40 per cent down, which made my five-year mortgage very manageable. My mortgage payment is $3,400 a month. I moved into the basement and rented out the main floor, which fetches $1,600 a month in rent. I kept working long hours and took advantage of all possible prepayment privileges, and after three years, I had paid off the house. I held a mortgage- burning party. I’ve had the same tenants for three years and have only had to do minor repairs, so things have gone very smoothly. My long-term goal is to attain a net worth of $1 million by the time I’m 35 and retire early. I guess I could have had more fun if I had taken longer to pay off my mortgage, but now I can enjoy financial freedom and travel while I’m still young. This summer, I plan to travel across western Europe. My fun had to wait, but it was worth it.

Power Couple

Amanda Diep and Steven Trieu wanted to own a house before age 25. In six years, they’ll have fully paid off their east-end bungalow

The Backstory

STeven: In 2010, a year after Amanda and I met at Ryerson, we read about how difficult buying a house would be for new university graduates. We joked about how we could buck the trend and buy a house before age 25. Then it became our goal.

aManDa: Our family and friends didn’t believe we’d be able to do it, and that motivated us. We both lived with our parents, which allowed us to pay off our student loans. I worked up to 20 hours a week at the Ryerson MBA office while taking a full course load.

STeven: I worked, by turns, as a bank teller, a TA, an accounting intern and a landscaper. After we graduated in 2014, Amanda got a job with the City of Toronto, and I worked a couple of part-time jobs. We worked so much, we didn’t have time to spend. We avoided credit cards and saved half of every paycheque.

aManDa: We still had some fun. We set aside three per cent of each paycheque, and travelled to Vegas, Cuba and Cancun.

The Owners Amanda Diep, 26, program development officer with the City of Toronto, and Steven Trieu, 26, budget analysis supervisor in the city’s finance department The Place A 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom detached bungalow at Birchmount and St. Clair

The Price

$650,000

The Closing Date

June 24, 2016

The Buy

STeven: By the middle of 2015, we’d paid off all our student loans and had $175,000 saved up. We set a budget of $600,000 to $700,000 and started going to showings that summer. All told, we made seven offers but were always outbid. We must have spent more than $2,000 on home inspections alone.

aManDa: Eventually, we found a two-bedroom bungalow minutes from Warden station, completely renovated, with a large backyard and a rentable basement. The asking price was $599,000. We offered $650,000 and got it. Our 30-year mortgage means we pay a very manageable $2,000 a month at the current rate.

STeven: We moved in a month after the purchase, by which time I’d found a full-time job. We’re actually paying more than our minimum right now—between $5,000 and $6,000 monthly, so we’re on pace to have the house paid off in six years. Our family and friends don’t think we can do that either!

Join us for GARDEN PARTY

2018

On Wednesday, July 18, Toronto Life will once again bring together music, food and the gorgeous outdoors in our popular fourth annual Garden Party event. Eat your way through the top catering in the city while sipping signature beverages. Your ticket price includes access to all indoor and outdoor activities, cocktail reception, standing dinner as well as an exclusive garden tour by Toronto Botanical Garden.

Toronto Botanical Garden Wednesday, July 18 6:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.

Tickets: $69 per ticket $120 per pair

(Must be 19+ to attend)

#TLGARDENPARTY

For event details and tickets visit torontolife.com/gardenparty2018

*rain or shine

CATERING PARTNER FURNITURE SPONSOR WINE PARTNER BEER PARTNER DESSERT SPONSOR VENUE PARTNER

Melissa Merritt and Christopher Fattore decided to kill her ex-husband’s family when they threatened to seize custody of her kids In the fall of 2000, fresh out of high school, Melissa Merritt started working at My Favourite Doll, a massive retailer in Mississauga festooned floor-to-ceiling with Barbies encased in plastic capsules. Melissa was pleasant and smiley, even a little naïve. Not long after she started her job, she fell in love with Caleb Harrison, a handsome young man who worked in the warehouse.

Caleb had a kind, mischievous smile, thick dark hair and an almost shy, guileless quality to his eyes. He was smart and sweet, a hard worker with a soft spot for pretty girls like Melissa. Once they got together, they were inseparable. Caleb would drive Melissa to and from work, and their co-workers would catch the couple making out in his car before and after their shifts. They took their lunches together, and Melissa would cook dinner for him every night. At 27, he was still boyish and playful, and he would tease her by farting in the lunchroom and holding her close while she squirmed.

That winter, there was a death in the Harrison family, and Melissa wanted to go to the funeral with Caleb, to support him and meet his relatives. It would mean that she’d need to take a day off work, and she was worried that her manager at My Favourite Doll would balk. So instead of asking for permission, she banked on forgiveness and left a message on her manager’s voicemail, telling her she would have to miss a day for the funeral. When the couple returned, Melissa was fired. She burst into tears, surrounded by Barbies. Caleb was furious and quit in solidarity.

Within a couple of years, they were married and had two children, a boy and a girl. Caleb was a devoted dad and even tattooed his kids’ names on his right shoulder. But his marriage to Melissa was a rocky one that soon dissolved into acrimony and violence. During an argument in 2005, Caleb hit her, and after spending three nights in jail was released on his own recognizance. The couple split, and he moved back home with his parents.

In July 2005, Caleb was invited to a keg party in Milton. He wasn’t going to drink—one of the conditions of his release was that he couldn’t consume alcohol. He had borrowed his mother’s Mercedes, and he told the three friends he was with that he’d be their designated driver. But Caleb liked to drink. He was working construction then, and after his shift he’d often unwind at the bar before going home to his parents’ house. He could usually handle his beer. Hard liquor, though, changed him. As the crickets sang into an empty suburban summer night, he allowed himself one drink. Then another. Then another. By the time he was ready to leave, he’d consumed nearly three times the legal limit. Caleb poured himself into his mother’s Mercedes. His friends realized he was too drunk to drive. They refused to get into the car and began walking home.

Caleb was alone, driving down Derry Road. Heading home in the other direction were four young men in a cab driven by Michael Rayment, a Milton taxi driver. As their headlights set upon each other, Caleb crossed the centre line and drifted into Rayment’s lane, colliding head-on with the taxi at 100 kilometres per hour. Rayment was killed. Tom Falinski, in the back seat, broke an arm and a leg, and fractured his spine from his L2 to his L4 vertebrae. Tim Corbett flew forward from the rear passenger seat face-first into the turnbuckle between the front and back doors, shearing his scalp cleanly off his skull from his eyebrow to his ear.

Both cars burst into flames. The other two passengers climbed out of the flaming taxi and into a ditch. As they stared back, their friends looked dead to them, slumped in the back seat with the fire closing in. Neighbours along Derry Road raced out at the sound of the accident, and pulled Corbett and Falinski from the taxi. And Caleb’s friends, who were just up the street and witnessed the crash, ran down Derry and pulled him from the very car they’d had the good sense to avoid.

Caleb’s leg was broken and he suffered a few bumps and bruises, but those injuries were minor compared to the ones he’d inflicted on others. He’d killed a man and brutally wounded two more. As the flames climbed above the wreckage, he couldn’t have known that by taking that first drink, he’d set into motion the events that would destroy his life, scattering his family like embers in the updraft.

Caleb Harrison was arrested, and charged with impaired driving causing death and bodily harm. He made bail, the strict conditions of which included house arrest at the family home on Pitch Pine Crescent in Mississauga, where his parents, Bridget and Bill Harrison, had lived for over 30 years. It was an airy six-bedroom modernist home with cathedral ceilings and high windows.

His mother, Bridget, was born in London, Ontario, in 1946. Stylish, adventurous and passionate, as a young woman she had been an accomplished actress, appearing on the London TV show Act Fast, as well as in plays at the Stratford Festival. It was backstage there in the early 1960s that she met her future husband, Bill, a Stratford native who worked in the costume department. Bill was athletic and handsome, with a magnetic smile and a taste for car racing and jazz. When they married in 1969, they moved to Mississauga. Bridget worked as a teacher, then as a principal, eventually serving on the Peel school board, and was beloved by her students and colleagues. Bill was an executive for Sobeys, and volunteered as a Big Brother and a Little League baseball coach. He had a green thumb and was the family gardener. The couple couldn’t have kids naturally, so they adopted Caleb in 1973, when he was six months old. Bill always called his son his best friend.

After Caleb’s accident, justice proceeded slowly, as it typically does in Ontario. His defence lawyer was unavailable to represent him at trial for a number of months, and then the judge presiding over the case fell ill. The trial was put off for another year, and then Caleb’s lawyer was again unavailable. When the preliminary hearing finally commenced, the Crown realized it hadn’t sent out summonses to a number of witnesses, and the case was postponed yet again. After a three-year delay, Caleb’s lawyer argued that his client’s Charter right to a speedy trial had been violated and that his case should be dropped. A judge dismissed the motion.

Melissa Merritt was outraged by Caleb’s car crash, taking it as proof that he was an unsuitable father. She became fiercely protective of her two kids. As both sides awaited the decision in the drunk-driving case, another judge had ruled that Caleb and Melissa would share custody of the children. Meanwhile, they had both fallen in love with people they’d met online. Caleb was dating Corinda McEwen, who had two children of her own. The Harrison family embraced her as one of them, and she became especially close with Bridget. She considered Caleb an excellent father—attentive, tender and always interested in talking things through with his kids.

the father april 16, 2009: Bill Harrison, a 64-year-old retired Sobeys executive, is found dead in the bathroom of his house

Melissa, meanwhile, had started a relationship with Christopher Fattore, who worked as an occasional security guard. A Green Bay Packers fan, he was built like a linebacker himself. He was doting and protective, deeply loving toward Melissa and her children, and filled with loathing for Caleb Harrison. From his left elbow to his wrist, he had a tattoo that read, “Only the strong survive.” Melissa and Caleb never formally divorced, but she and Chris still held a ceremony of their own, Melissa in a white gown and Chris in a kilt and jacket. They plunged a knife together into a cake adorned with his-and-hers crowns, their hands entwined on the hilt. Chris later inked a wedding band around his ring finger, punctuating his arm like a period. Several months after the ceremony, Melissa and Chris welcomed their first child, a girl.

In the spirit of the icy Darwinian slogan on his forearm, Chris had taken it upon himself to create a Facebook page rallying for the stiffest possible sentence for Caleb. “This is Caleb Harrison,” Chris wrote, “the dick that killed someone drinking and driving. He’s, unfortunately, also my wife’s ex-husband.” He posted a doctored photo of Caleb with devil horns and menacing teeth, and a speech bubble coming out of his mouth that read: “Give me a beer and the keys to mommy’s Mercedes.” He saw Caleb Harrison as a dangerous, drunken rich kid who was imperilling the lives of the children Chris was now helping to raise. He was soliciting 100,000 signatures and asked people to forward the page to everyone they knew. “This man has gotten away with too much already in his life,” Chris wrote. “It can’t keep happening.”

As the impaired-driving trial dragged on, the acrimony between the two families crept to a crescendo. Melissa filed a number of complaints with both the Children’s Aid Society and the police about Caleb’s supposed ill-treatment of their children. Few of those allegations could be substantiated. A judge presiding over their custody dispute suggested that Melissa and Caleb

one fa MI ly, TH ree v ICTIM s

the mother

april 21, 2010: Bridget Harrison, Bill’s wife, is discovered at the bottom of her staircase with a broken neck

the son

august 22, 2013: Caleb Harrison, the couple’s son, is strangled to death in his bedroom

communicate only in writing, to keep things civil, and so she became a prodigious letter writer. Bill and Bridget were actively involved in raising the kids, which irked Melissa. She accused the Harrisons of neglecting her daughter, which she called disgusting. She complained that she had to accommodate not just Caleb’s work schedule, but his parents’ as well, even though the children were supposed to be his responsibility. And she said when Caleb couldn’t care for his children, he’d dump them into the laps of other caregivers—their grandparents—which served only to estrange them from their own mother.

The battle started to get sinister when Melissa accused Bridget of writing Caleb’s letters for him and told her to butt out of their business. She accused the Harrisons of slapping her son and took it upon herself to withhold the children from the family, convinced she was doing her motherly duty by keeping them safe from a dangerous man and his enablers. But a judge intervened and upheld the shared custody ruling, adding a clause stating that the police should be notified if the Harrisons were denied access again.

During Caleb’s trial, Melissa and Chris would sit at the back of the courtroom and whisper to each other. On at least one occasion, they made faces at the Harrisons. As court adjourned, Melissa and Chris were scrummed in the hall by reporters and happily dished to the press. In the parking lot, the couple pulled their car in front of the Harrisons, sticking their tongues out. Caleb refused to engage with their histrionics, but Bridget was troubled by it all.

On March 9, 2009, Caleb was convicted of one count of impaired driving causing death and three counts of impaired driving causing bodily harm. The judge sentenced him to 18 months at Maplehurst. But if Melissa and Chris were hoping their custody battle was over now that Caleb was incarcerated, they were about to be sorely disabused. Bill and Bridget filed a motion to transfer Caleb’s custody rights to them while he was in prison. Less than two weeks after the sentencing, a judge granted the motion, writing that where Caleb’s name had been, Bill and Bridget Harrison’s would now appear.

Almost a month later, on April 16, Bridget came home late, around 9 p.m., from a school board meeting. The house was silent and dark, and Bill didn’t answer as she called his name. Minutes later, she found her husband. He was in the main-floor bathroom, with the lights off, dead. Bridget called 911. “He’s not breathing,” she said to the dispatcher. “He’s not breathing. Oh my god.” He appeared to have removed his wedding ring and crucifix necklace, taken out his Swiss Army knife, and brought blood pressure and pain medication with him into the bathroom. One of the officers at the scene, a rookie in his second year, wrote in his notebook: “Sudden death, doesn’t appear to be any foul play.”

It so happened that in the days leading up to Bill Harrison’s death, his grandchildren, unbeknownst to him or anyone else in the Harrison family, had told their teachers that they were going on a trip. On the very same day that Bill died, in contravention of a custody order, Chris and Melissa packed up their home, dyed their kids’ hair, unplugged from the grid and disappeared.

The birth of modern forensic pathology in Canada coincided with the death of Bill Harrison. Most of the developed world started training forensic pathologists in the 1960s and ’70s. It took Canada 40 more years to train our first. The only reason Ontario eventually modernized the discipline of forensic pathology was because of the catastrophic failings of one man who purported to practise it: Charles Smith. Tall and trim, bespectacled with prematurely graying hair that gave him an aura of authority, Smith was a pediatric pathologist at SickKids hospital in Toronto from 1981 to 2005. He had

no training or accreditation as a forensic pathologist, but by the 1990s he had come to be regarded as an expert in the field.

What’s the difference between a pathologist and a forensic pathologist? The former studies the living, and the latter studies the dead. Forensic pathology has its own body of knowledge, professional training, medical journals, conferences, and more. And yet, in 1992, Smith was named director of the Ontario Pediatric Forensic Pathology Unit, not because of his qualifications—he had none—but because he was the only one willing to take the job.

Smith had declared himself the leading mind in his discipline, and his authority went unchallenged for a quarter-century. He lectured extensively—to police, to coroners, to Crown prosecutors— about a science he didn’t understand. But his methods revealed his near-total ignorance of forensic pathology. He almost never visited the scene of the death he was investigating, the elementary first step. He would rarely collect germane medical information of the person whose autopsy he was performing, and the data he did bother to gather was disorganized. And he took great interest in the deceased’s so-called “social history”—the details of their personal lives that rarely had any scientific bearing.

Though Smith was little more than an avid amateur at forensic pathology, his findings or testimony at trial often sealed the fate of a criminal defendant. In one horrifying case, Smith determined a man named William Mullins-Johnson had sexually assaulted and strangled his niece while babysitting her. He was convicted and served 12 years in prison before his wrongful conviction was overturned. In 2007, the Office of the Chief Coroner conducted a review of the homicides and criminally suspicious deaths that Smith had overseen, and found that in 20 of the 45 cases, his testimony or report was suspect. A dozen of those cases resulted in a criminal conviction. Smith’s career ended in abject disgrace.

A public inquiry was commissioned in 2007 to survey the state of pediatric forensic pathology in Ontario, headed by Justice Stephen Goudge. His findings came to be known as the Goudge Inquiry. One of its key recommendations was the creation of the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service, an oversight body for forensic pathologists. The plan was set into motion mere months before Bill Harrison’s body was discovered locked in a darkened bathroom. He received “a non-forensic autopsy,” conducted by what’s called a “community-based pathologist,” with no specialty certification in advanced post-mortems. And even though Bill had a fractured sternum, and bruises on his head, face and neck, the pathologist nonetheless decided that he had died of a cardiac arrhythmia—that the heart of a hale, athletic 64-year-old man had suddenly stopped for no reason. He was cremated, and Bridget interred her beloved husband five days after he died, on April 22. With his body no longer available as evidence, Bill Harrison returned to dust.

The flowers didn’t bloom anymore at the

Harrison house after Bill, the family gardener, died. For Bridget, the promise of spring still seemed a long way off. In the back of her mind, she couldn’t put to rest the sense that the police and the coroner were wrong about Bill’s death, and that Melissa’s disappearance the same day Bill died was more than just a coincidence. Caleb was still serving out his sentence, but Bridget’s grandchildren were missing. The day after her husband’s funeral, she went to court, and a judge granted her

On the day of Bill Harrison’s death, Melissa and Chris packed up their home, dyed their kids’ hair and disappeared

temporary sole custody of them, wherever they may be. A month went by, and the police still had no trace of them. Another month came and went. On June 15, only three months into his 18-month sentence, Caleb was paroled and returned home.

Meanwhile, Melissa and Chris had made a life for themselves and their three kids in the tiny village of Londonderry, Nova Scotia, a once-bustling steel town whose population crashed to little over 200 after the mills closed a hundred years ago. There, Melissa gave birth to her fourth child—her second with Chris. He’d assumed a new identity, and it was only when he accidentally delivered a rent cheque in his own name that police found them. Melissa was arrested on November 27, 2009, and charged with parental abduction. As a condition of her bail, she was barred from having any contact with Caleb or their two children. Not only did she lose the children she’d fought so hard to keep, but she’d also have to stand trial.

On the couple’s computer, someone had been doing some alarming googling:

“What if a grandparent has legal custody and they die?”

“Legal custody and they die”

“If a grandparent has custody of the children and they die, which of the parents get the kids?”

“Bridget Harrison”

“Bridget Harrison, Mississauga”

They had even googled how long it took someone to die from being choked. On April 10, 2010, Caleb and Bridget spotted Melissa and Chris outside their house, a violation of her bail conditions. Again, she was arrested, and again she was released on bail. A few days later, on the anniversary of Bill’s death, friends and family gathered in the house on Pitch Pine Crescent to grieve and celebrate his life.

Bridget was set to testify at Melissa Merritt’s parentalabduction trial on April 22. She had written a victim impact statement on the hellish year that had started with a hellish day—the death of her husband and the abduction of her grandchildren at virtually the same moment. “Some people believe in coincidences,” she wrote. “Some do not.”

The day before the trial date, Bridget dropped off her grandchildren at school and Caleb at work. When her grandson returned home later that afternoon, he found her lifeless body at the bottom of the stairs, her skin waxy and discoloured, feet from where she’d found her husband just a year before. Her grandson raced across the street to a neighbour’s and called 911. A paramedic named Patrick Morin responded, and found Bridget’s body at

Chris Fattore and Melissa Merritt were arrested for the Harrison murders in January 2014

the foot of the stairs with her head resting on the bottom step, abrasions visible on her chin and ear. She was fully dressed, wearing a pair of Crocs, with her glasses and purse scattered before her. It looked like she’d been heading out the door.

Bridget had a broken neck, several broken ribs and evidence of neck compression, which suggested she was asphyxiated. Police interviewed Caleb, and he asked them to look closely at Melissa and Chris. But the forensic pathologist who performed her autopsy was still completing the training that the Goudge Inquiry had recently recommended. Bridget Harrison’s death was ruled suspicious—as opposed to natural—but not a homicide.

Caleb was nearly broken by his mother’s

death, and he slipped into a depression. He separated from Corinda and started to drink again. But his love for his children buoyed him. Five days after his mother was found at the bottom of the stairs, he was awarded temporary sole custody. Melissa would be allowed to see them only during supervised visits.

Melissa and Chris and their own growing family left Mississauga for Perth County, near London, Ontario, where they rented a farm, and Chris got a job at a poultry plant. They lived in a little brick house with a wooden screen door painted blue. They had two dogs, a guinea pig and a rabbit. They raised goats and pigs, which delighted Melissa, and from the milk they made cheese and lotions. They were obsessed with the idea of being self-sufficient, of producing everything they needed themselves. Melissa had a knack for crafts. She made taffy and candles at home, and crocheted bookmarks, bow ties and what she called apple cozies, which would protect apples from getting bruised. She sold them on her Etsy store, called The Good Ol’ Days.

She started a blog, writing one day about a cold that swept through the house: “Two adults and five kids all laying around the house suffering from cold symptoms. We did nothing but whine and complain to each other comparing who felt worse. I still say it was me because sick or not mommy still needs to take care of everyone.” Their days weren’t entirely carefree. Every so often, they would search for news online about Bill and Bridget Harrison, and one of them used the computer to google: “how to tell if your phone is tapped.”

Despite whatever suspicions Caleb may have had, he volunteered to give Melissa unsupervised access to their children. The kids would stay with Chris and Melissa and their half-siblings in Perth for a week, then come back to the house in Mississauga for a week. The couple were doting and playful parents, taking the kids to water parks, Niagara Falls and restaurants. Melissa would do crafts with them all, and Chris even put together a “Harlem Shake” video of the blended clan.

Early in the morning of March 1, 2012, when Melissa was five months pregnant with her sixth child, she and Chris awoke to rattling at their bedroom door and smoke pouring in underneath it. They grabbed the children from their beds and escaped out their bedroom window. The fire had started in the living room, and consumed their beloved little bungalow and all its contents, killing their dogs, the guinea pig and the rabbit. They moved into a hotel and started a GoFundMe page, which raised only about 10 per cent of the $50,000 they had hoped to recover.

Making matters worse, the tenuous détente between Melissa and Caleb began to collapse. She and Chris had found a new place to live, back in Mississauga. But Caleb had decided that he no longer wanted Melissa to have unsupervised access to their children. August 22, 2013, was to be the family’s last night alone together. Video footage from that day shows Melissa and Chris going to Walmart to buy a pair of men’s sneakers.

Caleb, meanwhile, was trying to be a good father. He was back with Corinda, and he had a steady job at CMC Electronics. He still couldn’t drive, but he’d arranged for a neighbour to take the kids, now 10 and 12, to and from school. He brought them to the park most days and even volunteered as their baseball coach, just as his own dad had done for him. He was doing the best he could, confiding to a friend that he was depressed, but not suicidal.

On August 22, Caleb took the kids to their baseball game, then dropped them off with Melissa. Corinda was supposed to go to the game that night and then stay over, but she was behind on an online course she was taking and didn’t trust the spotty Internet at Caleb’s house. He called her that night around 11. He sounded drunk and said he was going to put on a movie. They fought over the phone, about money and the house. When they hung up, Caleb turned off his phone, as he did every night. He was a light sleeper.

In the middle of the night, Christopher Fattore, wearing latex gloves and the shoes he’d bought the day before, arrived at Caleb’s house. He got inside using a key he’d stolen from Melissa’s eldest son. He crept past the bathroom where Bill Harrison had been found, then up the stairs where Bridget had lain, and arrived at Caleb’s bedroom. It was filthy—Caleb didn’t want his cleaning lady to tidy up the bedroom, and a layer of

The deaths of the Harrison family required a re-evaluation. one murder investigation had turned into three

dust and dog hair carpeted the floor. Standing over Caleb as he slept, the colossal man delivered a thunderous punch to his victim’s chest. Caleb shot up, and the two started to struggle. Caleb, drunk and tiny next to Chris, stood no chance. Chris threw him like a rag doll into the shelves beside his bed. In his final moments, Caleb begged for his life, offering his attacker money. But Chris didn’t say a word. Caleb clawed at him, to no effect. Chris clamped his hands around Caleb’s neck—just above where he’d tattooed his children’s names—and squeezed.

The cleaning lady had been at the house for hours when Caleb’s colleague came by at around lunchtime, concerned that he had missed work without so much as a phone call. He figured that Caleb was still sleeping and knocked on the bedroom door. “I’m scared, I’m scared,” the housekeeper said. They let themselves in to find Caleb’s body in his bed. The co-worker kept repeating Caleb’s name, putting his fingers to his friend’s neck. It was as cold as clay. The cleaner asked over and over if he was okay. When the paramedics arrived, one of them was Patrick Morin, who thought: “I’ve been here before.” He was the same paramedic who had responded to the scene when Bridget Harrison died.

Unlike Bill’s and Bridget’s deaths, Caleb’s was very quickly determined to be a homicide, by asphyxiation. And that was in no small part because, finally, a fully trained and certified forensic pathologist had performed the post-mortem on a member of the Harrison family. Suddenly, the three deaths of the three Harrisons, an entire nuclear family, required a wholesale re-evaluation. This was no longer an investigation of a single homicide, but two, and then three.

The police began surveilling Melissa and Chris almost immediately. The DNA found under Caleb’s fingernails matched Christopher Fattore, and undercover officers tailed him as he ran errands, drinking from a cup of Tim Hortons coffee. When he discarded it, an officer surreptitiously retrieved it. Another cop, posing as a waste collector, rode the back of a garbage truck as it ran its route past the Fattore home in Mississauga. One of the trash bags contained the shoes that Chris had bought at Walmart, whose soles were covered in dog hair, and latex gloves that had Caleb’s DNA on the outside and Chris’s on the inside. At the house on Pitch Pine Crescent, investigators found the tempestuous correspondence between Melissa and the Harrisons.

Melissa tried to go to Caleb’s wake, but was turned away by his family and friends. As the authorities built their case, she and her family planned to start over one last time. Now that Caleb was dead, the Harrison line of custody extinguished, Melissa had their children exclusively, and her family was complete. They moved back to Nova Scotia, near the sea.

In November, as the winter finally threatened, the family went to a nearby beach famous for the sea glass that washes up, the cutting edges dulled by wave after wave after wave, made good by the awesome indifference of the ocean. This one looked like a spade from a playing card. That one looked like a heart. They collected all the broken pieces, put them in a Mason jar, and made what had been ruined beautiful again.

A few months later, in January 2014, Detective Phil King from Peel Region flew to Nova Scotia and, with officers from the local RCMP dispatch, drove to the Fattore house on Isner Diversion Road. He had warrants to arrest both Melissa and Chris for Bridget and Caleb’s murders while the police continued to investigate Bill’s death. Chris walked out onto the porch as they arrived. He was arrested without a struggle, but he was so huge that they had to handcuff him using leg irons. Melissa too was arrested, and they were brought to the local station and put into separate interrogation rooms.

In hers, Melissa doubled over and wept. Chris’s interrogation room was no bigger than a bathroom, eight feet by six, windowless, lit fluorescently from above, with concrete walls and a green floor, just big enough to fit him and his interrogator, Phil King, sitting knee-to-knee. After 13 full hours of interrogation, with a catch in his voice, Chris finally told the detective: “I didn’t like Caleb Harrison.” Trying one last time to save his wife, he said: “I’m telling you right now that Melissa Merritt did not know anything until after it was done.”

“What did you do?” King asks.

Video of the interrogation shows Chris staring down at his huge hands folded in front of him. He inhales, then sighs for what feels like forever, and doesn’t look up. Finally, to his interlocked fingers, he says: “I killed Bridget Harrison and Caleb Harrison.”

In January 2018, a jury foreman stood in a Brampton courtroom and read the verdicts in the Harrison murders. Christopher Fattore and Melissa Merritt were found guilty of the murder of Caleb Harrison. Chris was also found guilty of murdering Bridget Harrison. The jury could not come to a verdict on the first-degree murder charge Melissa faced in the death of Bridget Harrison, and so the court declared a mistrial. And in the death of Bill Harrison, Chris, who alone faced a second-degree murder charge, was found not guilty due to insufficient evidence. The children were sent to live with the Merritt family, and both Melissa and Chris received life sentences, with no chance of parole for 25 years; they say they’re planning to appeal. The Peel police are conducting an internal review of the case, to determine whether or not mistakes were made in the three investigations. But that doesn’t satisfy the surviving members of the Harrison family, who are calling for a public inquiry.

In court, Chris and Melissa would stare at each other and give tender, even ironic smiles. They were clearly still very much in love. One day, the jury heard a recording taken just after their arrests, when they were being flown back to Ontario. Police put them in a room together that unbeknownst to them was bugged.

“What did you tell them?” Melissa asked.

“I’m taking the rap for it to get you a lesser—to give you accessory after the fact,” Chris said. “I told them I told you after.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Because I want you to get our children,” he said. ∫

FLAVOUR COUNTRY

Food-loving day trippers have a bumper crop of reasons to hit the road this summer. Here, our picks for the best restaurants outside Toronto right now

by mark pupo photography by dave gillespie

Pearl Morissette’s aged Berkshire pork with grilled greens, and a vinaigrette of salted wood nettle and grilled wild leek oil

it’s a rare chef today who doesn’t dream of greener pastures, literally: running a restaurant in the country, with small-scale organic farmers next door and heirloom tomatoes plucked from the back garden. That’s why the new prestige posting for many chefs is at a secluded winery, a picturesque inn or a historic estate surrounded by nature. Follow their trail and you just might encounter some of the best dining in the entire country.

For some oF the Finest dining in wine country (or anywhere)

The Restaurant at Pearl Morissette

where: 3953 Jordan Rd., Jordan Station

driving time From toronto:

1.5 hours The vineyards in the Jordan Station–Vineland area of the Niagara Peninsula tend to be smaller operations centred around a family farmhouse. The widely admired small-batch producer Pearl Morissette—which takes its name from the owner, Toronto developer-investor Mel Pearl, and his winery’s classically trained vigneron, Francois Morissette— is down a dirt driveway, past a pen of sunning pigs and grazing cows. While there’s no wine shop or buses parked in front (tastings are by appointment only), there is an austere black building, built to resemble a barn, that houses the most extraordinary new restaurant in the province, and perhaps the country.

The co-chefs, Daniel Hadida and Eric Robertson, are bookish, ambitious and French-trained. Their cooking credits include the great kitchens of Edulis and Langdon Hall, plus prestigious postings in France and Belgium. Their kitchen and the lofty, gallery-like dining room, which opened in November, are on the barn’s second floor, with views of Lake Ontario and the Niagara Escarpment deepening to purple at dusk.

Farm-to-table sounds too modest for Hadida and Robertson’s carte blanche

1. Scallop with salted apricot juice and prickly ash powder

2. Plum saison brewed at Toronto’s Burdock Brewery, with fruit from Pearl Morissette

3. Chefs Daniel Hadida and Eric Robertson

4. Dry-aged grass-fed beef with grilled budding kale, radishes and sweet onion sauce

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menu, which changes so frequently that they’ve taken to calling it “microseasonal.” Introductory bites might include momentarily grilled, quartersize Qualicum Bay scallops in a pool of butter and fermented peach juice; a few inches of a turnip, intensely sweet after being poached in chamomile-infused pear juice and wrapped in sheets of lardo and shavings of prickly pear; and a tiny bowl of oysters poached in pork broth made from salted, dried ham (those pigs do more than sun themselves). That’s followed by three savoury and two dessert courses, each delivered with a quick explanation of kitchen wizardry so involved that the only reasonable response is “wow.” Consider the potato: first shaved into a long, paper-thin ribbon, it’s wrapped into a tight spiral with extra-peppery arugula, then pan-roasted with beer and whey, and finally draped, for good measure, with potato cream and pops of caramel-coloured pickerel roe. No less ingenious are coins of carrots, fermented in salt until they taste like a cross between candied apples and cedar, that accompany a fillet of line-caught Nova Scotia halibut steamed and dusted with a powder of dried sassafras leaf; the rutabaga syrup used to glaze a chicken breast that has been slow-smoked and finished on the grill; and the clouds of parsnip mousse in a dessert of creamy oat ice cream and a streusel-like dusting of roasted chicory.

Many diners are already fans of Morissette’s wines, available as pairings or by the bottle. I’m especially fond of the 2016 Cuvée Sputnik, a frothy riesling that seems to change profile with each sip. Like Hadida and Robertson’s cooking, it has personality to spare. Cost: $78 per person for a five-course dinner, plus optional wine pairings.

1. Devilled hen’s egg with rosemary and tangerine marigold flowers, bronze fennel, wood sorrel, nasturtium and mint

2. Seared venison roasted with duck fat, served with preserved wild berries, honeycrisp apple jam, braised red cabbage purée and crispy cabbage chips

3. Chef Jason Bangerter

4. Sea scallop with lemongrass velouté and ocean mist

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For an over-the-top overnight getaway

Langdon Hall

where: 1 Langdon Dr., Cambridge

driving time From toronto: One hour

The 116-year-old mansion, converted to a country hotel and spa in the late 1980s, seems like it was purpose-built for wedding photography—especially the 30 hectares of manicured gardens that also supply its kitchen with produce, herbs and honey. Jason Bangerter, who made his name running O&B’s Auberge du Pommier, took over as chef in 2013. The grand surroundings come with valet parking, a dress code (jeans are forbidden and men encouraged to bring suit jackets) and a classical pianist who might cut loose with a sleepy version of “Lady in Red.” If you’ve travelled this far for dinner, splurge on the seasonal tasting menu, which is equally polished, exquisite and eye-catching. Fried sunchokes are served on a slab of bark, B.C. caviar in an ornate glass vitrine atop a piece of porcelain shaped like a chicken foot, and the scallop with a lemongrass velouté in a deep stoneware bowl into which the server pours a flower tea that activates a rising mist of dry ice. The list of extravagances extends to a beef cheek blanketed in shavings of black truffle, a ruby slice of uncommonly tender seared venison glazed with duck fat, and an intensely creamy dark chocolate mousse jolted by salty flecks of crisp chicken skin.

At some point in the evening, usually after the second bottle of wine, neighbouring tables start comparing notes on their dinners and discover that, oh, you’re from Toronto, too? Followed by talk of wine club memberships, the kids’ outrageous tuition costs and the perils of downtown commutes. Travel as far as you want; the city is never far behind. Cost: $165 per person for the tasting menu. Rooms from $340.

For a hint oF napa valley in niagara

Backhouse

where: 242 Mary St., Niagara-on-the-Lake

driving time From toronto: Two hours

There’s no shortage of charming gingerbread storefronts in Niagara-on-theLake. But this restaurant sits next to a Subway and a convenience store in a strip mall far removed from the town’s picturesque main street. It’s one of those unpromising locations that only heightens the feeling of a special discovery. Chef Ryan Crawford—taking inspiration from an apprenticeship at Michael Stadtländer’s iconic Eigensinn Farm and a spell at the French Laundry, Thomas Keller’s Napa Valley landmark— practises what he grandly calls “integrated cool-climate cuisine,” borrowing a wine term to describe how almost everything he cooks hails from nearby, including from his own produce farm less than a kilometre away. He cures his own bresaola and brines his own breadand-butter pickles. He dresses a salad of just-picked greens with barely-there verjus and locally cold-pressed canola oil. The pork in a light ragoût for a bowl of hand-made rigatoni comes from Berkshire pigs that roam freely on a neighbouring farm, dining on acorns and spent grains from the Oast House brewery. The dining room, filled with happy Shaw-goers, is spare and elegant, with oak logs stacked by the entry, a glassed-in wine cellar, and a view of an open kitchen where Crawford works a wood-fired brick oven and grill. I especially recommend the burger, which is flash-charred, and stacked with crisped pancetta, a funky aïoli made with local black garlic, pickles and melting slices of mimolette. It’s so good you might believe burgers are a local invention, too. Cost: $99 per person for the 12-course chef’s tasting menu. Wine pairings from $89.

1. House-made speck, capicollo, duck liver mousse, apricot compote, bread-andbutter pickles, and wood-oven rye and whole wheat sourdough breads

2. Chef Ryan Crawford

3. Burger with black garlic aïoli, pancetta and mimolette cheese

4. House-made rigatoni bolognese

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1. Where the lounging, stargazing and beanbag toss happen

2. The crispy potato latke slathered with crème fraîche and topped with salt cod and sprigs of fresh dill

3. Chef Alexandra Feswick

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For a slice oF Queen west in the county

Drake Devonshire

where: 24 Wharf St., Wellington

driving time From toronto: 2.5 hours

The marketing pics for the Drake’s Prince Edward County inn give the impression of countryside isolation and Hudson’s Bay blanket–wrapped stargazing around a campfire. Instead, it’s located smack in the middle of smalltown Wellington, a few steps from the main street, where the big attraction is a Foodland that’s overrun on weekends with ice cream–seeking campers from nearby Sandbanks Provincial Park. What the inn lacks in seclusion it makes up for with signature Drakeness. It’s heavily art-directed, nostalgic and woodsy, like a Wes Anderson movie set in Ontario cottage country, with a Ping-Pong room, crannies stuffed with vintage Canadian bric-a-brac and surreal-ish contemporary art. The inn’s bar, serving P.E.C. wines and clever variations on classic cocktails, is the county’s most dependable nightlife destination—weekly open-mike nights often become sing-alongs. What’s not a surprise is the inn’s restaurant menu, which shares DNA, and an emphasis on super-hearty fare, with the Drake’s three Toronto locations; the chef in charge is Alexandra Feswick, until recently the executive chef of the Queen West flagship. I’m fond of her crispy salt-cod latkes dipped in crème fraîche; a richly cheesy block of mushroom-and-taleggio lasagna; and roast chicken from a county supplier, its skin crisp and mahogany, with a side of enough root veg to see you through next winter. Some nights, she’ll roast those chickens over an outdoor firepit—the same one from the photos. Cost: $50–$75 per person for dinner. Rooms from $359 during the summer months and $209 in winter.

For a celebratory dinner with the thrill oF escape

Quatrefoil

where: 16 Sydenham St., Dundas

driving time From toronto: One hour

If there’s ever a weekend traffic jam in the Hamilton suburb of Dundas, condocrammed Torontonians are a likely cause, drawn here by tales of affordable detached (detached!) houses on leafy streets, a main thoroughfare lined with cute boutiques and smart espresso bars run by disarmingly cheery millennials, and a commute that feels only slightly longer than the wait for a seat on a King West streetcar. All is true—and you can start planning your move over dinner. Quatrefoil’s co-owners, Fraser Macfarlane and Georgina Mitropoulos— he’s the chef; she’s a former chef who runs the front-of-house—trained under Scaramouche’s Keith Froggett and in some of Europe’s best restaurants. It shows in the crisp white linens, flickering votive candles, smooth wait staff, and cooking that’s elegantly French and occasionally trendy, but never intimidatingly far out—you’ll recognize everything on your plate. My most recent visit was on the first warm night of spring, and there was a distinct sense of celebration in the full house of partying colleagues pillaging the long, thoughtful wine list; date-night parents, phones at the ready for emergency response; and at least one proposal (we all clapped). I loved my peppery torchon of foie gras, dressed with three variations of carrots (pickled ribbons, a jam and a jelly); a tartare of ruby-red bison and overly generous shavings of black truffle, with a thick slice of house-made brioche; the rich coat of jus on short ribs, so tender they collapse at the gentlest touch; and the contrast of creamy, saffron-scented yogurt and toasted wheat berries hiding under a slab of perfectly seared Arctic char. Desserts tend toward the abstract, like a deconstructed pie of intensely sweet maple fudge, torched marshmallow and a drift of buttermilk sorbet. A word of warning: the proportions of everything—save the amuse-bouche and meal-ending passion fruit macaron— are as big as a Dundas backyard. Cost: $80–$100 per person for dinner.

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2 1. Braised beef short rib with root vegetables, onion soubise and a shower of jus

2. Quebec foie gras surrounded by carrot, orange, puffs of wild rice and moscato jelly, served with toasted brioche

3. Deconstructed maple fudge pie topped with toasted marshmallow and buttermilk sorbet

4. Chef and co-owner Fraser Macfarlane