Interior Design

Published as part of a special feature for the BC Ballet Fundraiser in Western Living, June 2003

imply Elegant

When it was time for a new home, designer Susan McIntyre and husband John purchased a beautiful lot with an old house in historic Shaughnessy-and razed it to the ground. “It was not worth salvaging,” says Susan, who wanted a home with an elegant, yet liveable, French country look suited to her family's sociable lifestyle and the changing needs of her three grown children.

Unfortunately, with Shaughnessy building restrictions limiting her overall roof height to 35 feet, the high mansard roof she envisaged wasn't possible. A house like this in France would have an additional ten feet of height, but with the help of architect Howard Arey, she managed to make the necessary adjustments and complete everything in the space of one year. The result is a west coast version of a classic French country villa; a Shaughnessy mansion for the 21st century.

From the street, it has a classic French façade: mullioned windows and French doors lead outside, and grey wood shingles and dormer windows line the steeply pitched roof. Entering into the spacious hall with its tumbled travertine floor, the eye travels through the arched entry to the dining room beyond, and comes to rest on the Regency-style chairs grouped around the table and the fireplace just behind them. To the left is a huge antique chest under a tapestry, and just ahead, a bronze semi-abstract sculpture by Marks is mounted on a white pedestal. To the right, a locally made wrought-iron banister follows the curves of an elegant limestone staircase. Small, round “coin” windows flank the entry, a design element that is repeated throughout the house.

The kitchen and family room form an open, informal L shape flanked by an entire wall of mullioned windows and French doors, leading into a private garden protected by 20-foot hedges. “I didn't want the usual kitchen layout,” says Susan, so she tweaked some standards. Unlike most kitchen designs, the gas range and electric oven is positioned in front of the windows, so that the chef can look out into the garden and socialise while cooking. For the same reason, the sink is positioned in the huge granite-topped island rather than against the wall.

The floor is dark stained oak, a choice Susan prefers to tile. The walls are a sophisticated glazed terra cotta shade, which glows softly in lamplight. The wood cabinets have been painted in antiqued white, a job that Susan and her daughter tackled together. Comfortable couches and an antique Thai bench, which doubles as a coffee table, are grouped around the fireplace, one of five. “I'm a romantic,” says Susan.

The light and airy drawing room is dominated by a vibrant Gathie Falk on the feature wall. A baby grand nestles in an alcove open to the hall on one end, and large French doors lead to an outside patio on the other. The room perfectly balances elegance with a sense of welcoming comfort.

The upstairs bedrooms are intimate yet spectacular. Soft but hardy wool sisal carpets cover the entire upper floor. All wall colours are subtle shades, ranging from soft celadon in the master bedroom to palest mint in the guest bedroom. The home's architect points out that the steep and varied roof line Susan and husband John wanted could only be achieved by lowering the walls on the second story and then designing the high ceilings to fit each room. “It is complex to build and a decorating challenge,” said Arey, “but with the building restrictions, we had to find a creative solution.”

In the master bedroom, a specially made Japanese cabinet hides the television, one of several hidden throughout the house. The bed faces the fireplace and French doors lead onto a small wrought-iron balcony. A dressing room and full bathroom with club-foot tub complete the master suite.

At 6,000 square feet, the large size of the home could have turned it into a rambling and overwhelming structure. But it's a house that manages to find that fine balance between an intimate family home, and an elegant French country villa.

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Published as part of a special feature for a BC Ballet Fundraiser in Western Living, June 2003

Norman Beauty

Magnificent old trees, notably a Chinese spruce and a Louisiana swamp cypress surround the pond, with rhododendrons and a profusion of water plants creating the look of an old garden. The house, at the end of a meandering driveway and surrounded by a weathered old fence, appears to be floating on this reflecting pool. A huge black bronze vessel, discovered by owner and designer Sherry Killam on a voyage to India, provides strong contrast to the vegetation.

But the clean, low-slung lines of the house are deceptive. They hide a secret: North America's only reconstituted Norman barn, which Larry Killam managed to acquire in Portsmouth, England. How it came to rest on Pacific shores is a tale of passion and persistence. A Vancouver land developer with a long-standing interest in heritage building, Larry's love affair with old barns began when he and wife Sherry spent a year in Europe. Not just any old frame would do: Killam sought a rare, double-aisle barn that could offer design possibilities unique to North America.

And he found it: a dismantled English barn built in the style of Normandy, lying in a warehouse in England for twenty years. There were stories housed in those four walls: its roots were on a farm behind Southwick Manor, where Montgomery, Eisenhower and De Gaulle made plans for D-Day. “They were looking at this barn while they were making their plans,” says Larry.

The barn had been damaged in the war, so the farmer was eager to sell it to an American developer. It was the 1950s, and laws prohibiting such deals were non-existent; nowadays, heritage buildings such as this cannot be dismantled, let alone transported across half the globe.

The future site of the barn was on a flood plain; before they were able to start building they had to dig up the original fill, then close the resulting hole with sand and wait while it settled. This gave them time to “cure” the old timbers, each one numbered, in a bath of lime and scrape off the old wormwood, a laborious process that preserves the ancient oak timbers. Concrete foundations were finally cast, and a giant crane lifted the pieces into place in six weeks, a process the owners describe as nerve wracking. The resulting space is nothing less than spectacular.

Living in reconstructed 1640s Norman barn creates a subtle connection to a time when everything moved at the speed of hand. There's a living presence to the ancient wood that needs to be experienced to be understood: one has to see the curve of a weathered roof rafter over a modern bathroom mirror to get the full effect. The cathedral-like double-hipped roof, built without a single straight line, dominates the 38 by 36 foot living room. An enormous stone fireplace from an estate near Marseille fits the generous proportions of the room. Rare seventeenth century French country antiques mix with modern, comfortable green sofas. One of the sofas faces the windows looking north over the ever-changing surface of the water. At night, outdoor lighting creates reflections of the trees in the pond, giving the illusion of great depth in the shallow water.

The walls are what Sherry calls “European white” throughout, and every detail of furnishings and floors contribute to the overall feeling of serenity and spaciousness. All doors are antique French, restored and enlarged to fit into modern frames. Even the staircase to the upstairs bedrooms is 17th century.

The flooring throughout is neutral: hand-cut, French limestone, and Persian carpets in the living room and adjoining dining room. The large country kitchen features 200 year old terra-cotta, sun-dried floor tiles. The kitchen, which connects to the barn structure in a T-formation, is dominated by a huge, old fashioned green stove, an Aga cooker with four separate ovens. Sherry found this in London, where such stoves are still used to heat the house as well as for cooking.

There is a price for living with the past, however: there isn't enough storage space. A collection of armoires suffices, and for Sherry, living in a structure suffused with history and the sense of another way of life is compensation enough. To the Killams, “it's always completely satisfying.”

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