A TASTE OF EUROPE

This hand-painted Victorian home brings old-fashioned opulence to downtown Toronto

- Jean Grant

ARTIST EVE GORDON will never forget the grandiose European designs she saw during her summer in France in the 1970s. Her parents had sent her to do a French course in Montpellier; while on a biking tour around the countryside, she was amazed by the hand-painted walls and carved wooden mouldings in local churches, homes and gardens. "I felt like I belonged there," she says.

During university, Gordon began painting flowers. In 1976, she moved to Paris and displayed her whimsical oil paintings in several shows. On a visit back home in 1983, she went on a blind date and met her husband, the late investment dealer Crawford Gordon. Though she hated to leave Paris, she agreed to move to Toronto to be with him. They were married within six months.