Tiny Coxwell box home sells for over $349,000 asking price. imagine what you can buy in Durham for ths price!

The Toronto Star-Susan Pigg       Business Reporter        The tiny box house on Coxwell Ave. has sold for “well over” the asking price of $349,000 — to a couple with two young children. The buyers, an architect and interior designer, beat out five other bidders with vision rather than money, by bringing their own architectural plans to the table. They were “exceptionally passionate” about the house and presented expansion plans, as well as their ideas for recladding the aged exterior of the three-storey building, that were “well in line” with the grand plans the owner and designer, architect Rohan Walters, had for the property when he first built it on a tight budget back in 2003. The final price tag can't be disclosed yet because the offer is conditional until Friday, said listing agent Jennifer Scaife. It's believed to be more than $400,000. There had been a higher bid but “money is not the only driver,” Walters said in an interview. “One of the hallmarks of my work is that I can see things where other people cannot and do not. I relied on instinct and it has served me well.” Walters was delighted to have a family “grow up and experience” the Coxwell home, one of many he has planned. He has been keeping a list for years of unusual plots of land throughout the city where he can challenge building conventions. He sold the Coxwell house, in part, to fund that ongoing work, including construction of a “townhouse” on a 10-by-37-foot driveway he bought for $14,000 directly beside the equally unusual College St. and Lansdowne Ave. home he built and lives in. That new house, to be completed in June, will be tested on tenants to ensure the space works. Walters' crazy Coxwell house is comprised of three 16-by-16-foot floors of heated concrete slab, resting on stilts. The detached house sits on a bowling-alley-like 23-by-205-foot lot on a busy street. The stilts minimize vibrations from streetcars and lift the unusual home up to street level, where it has delighted children, and perplexed their parents, for almost a decade. The house has no furnace, basement or closets — which would have made it a better fit for the highest bidder, a single person. By adding on, pending city approval, it's expected the new buyers will add family-friendly amenities — such as a kitchen.