Country Homes

This recreational home is sited in a development at the foot of the Alpine Ski Club in the Town of Blue Mountains.

The building is sited on a residential street facing the ski hills and is designed for Apres-ski entertaining with six bedrooms, open living spaces, a recreation room, a sauna, and a courtyard with a hot tub and firepit.

The challenge was to create a recreational feel in a building which is within a suburban style subdivision with styles ranging from neo-classical to modern. The goal was achieved by making the courtyard the centrepiece of the design. The layout of the house around a courtyard not only protects the hot tub and firepit from prevailing winds but provides a house that is more inward looking, versus a view outward to the residential street. The courtyard device also allows natural light to penetrate the living spaces, while enhancing the transparency between indoor and outdoor rooms. While the building is large, the massing from the street is of low scale in contrast to the adjacent two-storey houses. The portion of the house in front of the courtyard is one-storey, while the portion behind the courtyard is two- storey, which not only reduces the height at the front elevation but affords a view of the ski hill from the gallery on the second storey which also overlooks the living room.

Interior materials include hardwood floors, natural stone, rift sawn white oak, and douglas fir post and beam ceilings. Exterior materials are dark stained natural wood siding, metal standing seam roof, aluminum clad widows and natural stone.

This family compound houses a one-storey wing with great room, screened porch and master bedroom on the ground floor with views to Lake Simcoe.

A two-storey wing at the entry side of the building accommodates six bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms; there is also room for future bedrooms in the basement.

The building is painted in dark tones with a cedar roof to blend with the site, while interior rooms flow with the exterior spaces fora seamless connection.

This house is located in the Caledon Hills on farmland which is still cultivated.

The landscape is subtle compared to some of our more northern projects located on rugged sites in the Canadian Shield. The goal was to create a house which not only fit into the landscape but also integrates the interior with the exterior.

The main floor is configured as the entry foyer, mudroom, great room, screened porch and master suite, and the lower level has three bedrooms, a family room and games room below the second porch, all with maximized daylight in a walk-out condition.

This property encompasses a valley created by a natural watershed, resolving itself into a small lake surrounded by steep, wooded, sheltering hills.

The environmentally sensitive site demanded a design proposal confined to a pre-existing development footprint. The design team focused on a solution that would reinforce the compositional beauty of the site through the use of natural materials and simple geometric planes, and spaces in a highly transparent configuration.

In conjunction with a new two-storey vacation home on the site, the project also included the design of a small boathouse pavilion on the lake. The richness and warmth of the wood reinforces the connection to the site as a re-interpretation of the verdant natural setting outside.