Norman B. Gash House (Spadina Station Entrance) 1899
Designed by architect Robert Ogilvie for barrister Norman B. Gash, this house was built when Spadina Road was a quiet and narrower residential street. The house remained a single-family residence through the 1950s, after Spadina Road was widened into four lanes. It and other buildings along Spadina Road were then threatened with demolition to make way for a sunken expressway and a subway line. Though the expressway plans were cancelled in 1971, Metropolitan Toronto acquired this house the following year to replace it with a new subway station. Local residents and the Toronto Historical Board argued successfully for the preservation of the house to maintain the residential character of the area. Adam Associates Architects redesigned the interior and rear of the house as the northeast entrance to the Spadina Station on the new subway line, which opened in January 1978.
Plaque via Alan L. Brown's site Toronto Plaques. Full page here.