Jian Ghomeshi, host of Q, CBC Radio’s cultural affairs show, is a hot single guy, so you would expect his townhouse/loft in Cabbagetown to be Party Central.

Wrong.

Right from the entry-way, a visitor takes in the homey touches of shoes parked by the door, broken-in Persian carpets (a no-brainer considering his Iranian heritage), the warm burgundy-red back wall and the Lava lamps, nods to his musical past as lead singer/drummer/songwriter in the pop group Moxy Früvous. A drawing from electro-pop singer/songwriter Lights, whom he manages, hangs in his foyer.

“People say, ‘Hey Jian, you should have tons of parties, this is a great party space’ ” Ghomeshi allows.

“I don’t have tons of parties; I have one or two parties a year though I can fit in a few hundred people here. I chill here; it is my escape. This place is me cocooning, getting away from it all.”

He can get away from it all in four storeys comprising about 3,000 square feet.

There are two bedrooms, three bathrooms, living room, kitchen with island and dining nook, laundry room and big rooftop deck.

“It is built up, like a New York or Paris loft,” he says. “If you stand at the bottom, you can look up almost 50 feet.”

He refers to it as his “big, tall-ceilinged baby.

“I never thought I’d need so much space myself but I spread myself out,” he contends, settling into the black leather couch in the living room. His furniture is from Up Country.

“I’m not a particularly materialistic kind of guy. It is not about what I own but it reminds me that I worked really hard for a lot of years in bands.”

And he’s worked hard on Q, taking over what was Sounds like Canada’s 10 a.m. time slot from Shelagh Rogers and propelling Q into the highest-rated show in that slot in CBC history, surpassing even the revered Peter Gzowski.

Billy Bob Thornton going postal on him didn’t hurt either. The interview went viral on the Internet, resulting in Ghomeshi fielding interview requests from Msumbai in the middle of the night.

Okay, what is Q? Does it stand for question?

“Whatever you want,” he hedges. “It could be the Star Trek character.”

Ghomeshi was born in London, England, 42 years ago and raised in Thornhill.

“It was a pretty homogenous suburb,” he allows.

So part of the appeal of this place was location, location, location. He loves Cabbagetown.

“It has an amazing collision of new and old,” he explains. “Its world-class diversity turns me on.”

He has had the place almost five years. It is an old peanut factory – he didn’t buy it for peanuts but won’t divulge any numbers.

“It is part townhouse, part loft, part house,” he says. “I wanted something that felt like a home. It is hidden away from the outside and surrounded by greenery. I renovated, redid the floors and lighting.”

He was hands-on in the planning and had a designer friend help him out. Offsetting the red wall is a black steel winding staircase, black fireplace, exposed black heating ducts, cherry oak flooring and mauve kitchen cabinets.

Clearly he is not afraid of colour.

“I’ve always been interested in decor and colour in creative spaces,” he says. “I worked in clothing stores as a teen and I have a taste for what I like against the better judgment of people who said, ‘You don’t want to do a fireplace all black.’ ”

Let alone do the cabinets in mauve.

People might also have had a problem with the tiles on the counter, which are actually floor tiles. That means you can walk on them, or more importantly, dance on them in the event of a party breaking out.

“The floor tiles were a happy accident,” he explains. “The contractor and I were looking at this tile place and I liked them. He said they were floor tiles. Some of the hardwood is original from the factory and restored but a lot of the flooring is new, which balances the industrial elements.”

There were no big boo-boos that a coat of paint couldn’t fix. The red wall used to be an earthy green. When the high-noon sun hit a girlfriend’s face, it became an unfortunate shade of chartreuse. Not a look she was going for.

Ghomeshi has another house in Riverdale, which is now a rental. It was the site of his first apartment — furnished with stuff borrowed from his parents — and his first foray into real estate when he was in his 20s.

Getting into the housing market was a very mature move; young rockers have been known to put their money up their noses or squander it on booty.

“My dad said, ‘Real estate. It is solid,’ ” Ghomeshi confesses. “It is the smartest thing I did. I bought economically and a decade later, it is worth four times more.”

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This Cabbagetown buy is a departure for Ghomeshi, who admits an affinity for big old Victorian houses, like his Riverdale home.

“I wanted a warm environment and I like this industrial loft,” he says. “I spent 10 years touring and I have a busy job. This is a big space but I balance it with warmth: the floors, plants, Persian rugs, fires burning.”

The Persian rugs are from family. The racing-car cocktail glasses on the fireplace are courtesy of his older sister, Jila, a professor of linguistics at the University of Manitoba. The gargoyles dotted throughout the upstairs are souvenirs of his different trips touring.

You can look — but don’t touch.

“They have very specific stations,” he says. It must be a Goth feng shui thing.

There is no clutter. Ghomeshi is a “voracious reader” who goes through three to five books a week for his job (more when he hosts Canada Reads). So where are the books?

“I have massive shit,” he insists. “I have stashes at my office at work; my job is cultural guy. I have drums and guitar because I am music guy. I have a lot going on but my living space is easy to organize—clutter is my enemy. It doesn’t mean that I’m not a pack rat but it is a survival mechanism. Even pulling all-nighters in university (where he was political science guy), I needed to clean my desk first.”

Ghomeshi’s favourite room is the extended island in the clutter-free kitchen, his primary work station, with the three daily newspapers he ingests sprawled out on the counter space alongside his laptop, source of his music. Patti LaBelle’s “It Took a Long Time” on the soundtrack from the movie Precious is in heavy rotation.

“It is my favourite moment of the day — my papers and laptop getting my view of what is happening in the world. In spring and summer, I move to my rooftop: sky and tops of the trees. To sit up there and read is pretty dreamy.”

As homey and woodsy-mossy as it sounds, Ghomeshi admits that his sanctuary is “not made for the traditional nuclear family. There are a lot of stairs — it is a great cardio workout.”

Nor is it necessarily his dream house.

“I love it for where I am at now, but when I have a family, I’d want us to put our stamp on it as ‘our space.’ ”

Meanwhile, it is perfect for the space he is in right now.

“People think I go out all the time but I go out maybe once or twice a week,” he contends. “I’ll go to a play opening for the job. “

He works out every day and does yoga. And then he tends to his homework.

“I have to figure out how not to work 12 to 15 hours a day,” he declares. “I have a stack of homework four to five times a week. I remember what it is like as an interviewee when the interviewer had not listened to the record. I don’t want to be that guy.”

Ghomeshi has interviewed everyone from Salman Rushdie to Phyllis Diller. What is his ideal “get”?

“David Bowie,” he says without hesitation. “I always wanted to be Bowie. I am almost scared to do him because where would I go from there? I would either have to quit the next day or be on my death bed.”

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