Grand House is not your average home. It was designed and built by students at the University of Waterloo's School of Architecture and has remained the school's only Cambridge student housing.
The house, which was built back in 2008, is now for sale, but the owners do not want to let it go to just anyone.
"They have had multiple offers, but it's really important to the owner that it goes to someone who will want to keep the property going for students," said Manav Aggarwal the house's "Don" and fourth-year resident.
The property at 68 Roseview Ave. boasts 13 rooms and 4,600 sq ft of living space. While the home has been listed on realtor.ca for nearly 300 days, 12 students are still occupying the home and are getting ready for the upcoming school year.
According to Aggarwal, one of the things that makes Grand House special is the camaraderie and closeness that extends outside of the classroom.
"This is more than a place where students just live together. We all help each other with work, build bonds that will last forever and just have fun," he said.
This home was truly built by the students for the students.
Back in 2004 when the School of Architecture was first opened, there was no student housing available. As a part of a master's thesis for Chantal Cornu, she developed a concept for a home called "Hillside."
This thesis would be the foundation for the home and would be designed as a fully energy-efficient home.
According to the house's website, the building is made of straw bale with in-floor radiant heating. It collects rainwater for the toilets and utilizes recycled materials such as old doors and maple hardwood flooring that was once used in a local school’s basketball court.
One of the most noticeable things about the three-story house is that it sits on stilts. To achieve this, the students had to outsource the engineering to Nadir Ansari, CEO of Isherwood Geostructural Engineers.
Ansari came up with the idea of micro-piling to help support the home on the slopped hill. This is the use of smaller support beams in the ground to distribute the weight of the structure among many different supports instead of a single one.
"The City of Cambridge sold the land to the student for $1 to help them fund the building of the house so that was their way of contributing," said Aggarwal. "The students ran it as a co-op for a few years, but then they were losing too much money."
The home was operated by the students until 2012 when the home started to hit financial rock bottom. It was then put up for sale where Ansari came back into the picture to buy the property for around $698,800.
Now the property is put back on the market for $1.5 million after first being posted for $1.7 million back in October of 2023.
Aggarwal knows how much this house means to the school and to the students who have studied and lived there throughout the years.
"This place really only makes sense as a student housing and it has so much history here," he said.
Eric Haldenby is a professor at the School of Architecture and was the house director when it first opened. He notes that Grand House has reached legendary status at the school.
"Everyone knows about it and it really has its own lore to it," said Haldenby. "The students are able to take their relationships and learning beyond the classroom and really enjoy themselves there."
He notes that the house is a beacon for students to be able to find housing in a rental market that is hard on average residents let alone students.
"This is a pace that is kind of a safe bet for student housing, that we know there will always be units available for them," said Haldenby. "If we lost this as student housing it would be very unfortunate for the students to have this go missing from their experience here at the school."
Aggarwal adds that each student pays around $700 a month for their rooms.
"I hope that whoever buys this property knows what they're getting into and will keep the students on. I loved living here and wouldn't trade this for anything else," he said.
The listing for Grand House has now been on realtor.ca for 273 days.
