Canadian mansion where Olsen twins filmed "It Takes Two" demolished (PHOTO)
People all over the world who grew up alongside Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (whose legacies I will not insult by trying to compress into a single paragraph) were devastated to learn a few weeks ago, via The New York Post, that the Toronto mansion in which the duo had filmed their first real feature film was gone.
Okay, maybe not devastated, but surprised, especially given how valuable and beautiful the now-demolished chateau was.
blogTO has confirmed that the sprawling home at 68 The Bridle Path, where It Takes Two was shot, has been destroyed — all 30,000 square feet of it, 10 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms and bomb shelter included.
The sprawling chateau-style mansion at 68 The Bridle Path was taken down in August to make way for a new Ferris Rafauli project that has yet to be revealed. (talkingwallsphoto.com)
Once up for sale at a staggering $35 million, 68 Bridle Path was the most expensive publicly listed house for sale in Canada back in 2017.
It was last listed for $39,500,000 in August 2018 and then taken off the market in February 2019, according to Zolo records.
Whoever owns the property now appears to be rich — as in rich rich — because they hired the designer behind Drake’s nearby mega-mansion (Ferris Rafauli) to build something new on the lot in Toronto’s ritziest neighbourhood.
Rafauli himself shared footage from the home’s demolition in August with the caption “end of an era, the beginning of a new one. A new canvas is born.”
The Ontario-based urban explorer behind talkingwallsphoto.com confirmed the news of the demolition in August by posting a photo from the scene.
“If you hurry down to 68 The Bridle Path, there’s an area where there’s no gate and you can get in and explore the pool area and more. The house will be gone this week,” wrote the prolific photographer, who had previously explored the home when it was merely abandoned.
“I also saw the bomb shelter which I’d missed before, and it was quite anti climatic. It’s in the basement in the room with all the closet doors.”
According to the Talking Walls Photography website, the mansion was originally built in 1985 by real estate developer and financier Robert Campeau.
“During the 1980s, Campeau undertook several leveraged buyouts of businesses including shopping malls. Due to a downturn in retail sales, the debts taken on through several of these aquisitions were unable to be met,” reads a post about the mansion.
“Mr. Campeau was forced to sell this house in 1990 although the house was in his wife’s name which protected it from creditors. Various deals to purchase the property fell through over the next six years.”
It was during this time, before Harold and Sara Springer bought the home in 2002 and styled it as a 17th-century French chateau, that several films were made on the property, including Kissinger and Nixon, That Old Feeling, and, of course, the iconic aforementioned Mary-Kate and Ashley flick.
The original theatrical release poster for 1995’s “It Takes Two.” (Warner Bros.)
Released in 1995, It Takes Two starred the Olsen twins as two identical little girls being raised as complete strangers, one as an orphan (whose social worker is Kirstie Alley) and one as the daughter of a very rich dude (Steve Guttenberg).
The nine-year-old girls meet at summer camp and decide to pull a little switcheroo, going home to each others’ lives, a la The Princess Switch or, more accurately, Mark Twain’s The Prince and The Pauper.
MK&A eventually scheme to make Guttenberg and Alley’s characters fall in love so that the four of them may live happily ever after, together, as a family. It’s a true classic — one that many millennials will remember watching repeatedly on VHS while dreaming of finding their own long-lost twin bestie.
A sad day for great classic film lovers… https://t.co/zImnYnSggS
— Chip Duckett (@ChipDuckett) February 16, 2023
The house appeared to be in pretty good shape when it was razed, as evidenced by images from Talking Walls Photography, leading some to question why it wouldn’t have just been revamped again instead of bulldozed.
“I appreciate change, and the vision but the lack of effort to reclaim any of the materials before that level of demo kinda sucks — I guess with a certain clientele, no one cares?” commented one Instagram user on Rafauli’s post about the demolition.
“This was at one time the most expensive house in the country. Then Ferris gets some power baller client that pays mid 8 figures for it and tears the place down lol,” wrote another. “Toronto is wild.”
The sprawling mansion, as it existed before August, had its own tennis court, ballroom, library, recording studio, wine cellar and a huge indoor pool with a retractable floor. It was said to have seven wood-burning fireplaces, solid gold sink faucets and elevators leading to all four floors.
In addition to Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario states that the home has also played host to such notable guests in the past as Jane Fonda and Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
Follow Channels and Categories