A West Vancouver house on the precipice of change

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By nature, a coastline is a place of transition. Water and wind endlessly change the shape of things and only what’s solid endures. This seemed like a pretty good metaphor to Matt McLeod on a recent project.

The clients, a family of five, had started planning a custom home, knowing that in four or five years when the project finished, their three teenage sons would be grown or out of the house.

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“Our clients were cognizant that a transition was going to happen and this wasn’t always going to be primarily a family house,” says McLeod, principal of McLeod Bovell Modern Houses.

The couple also had specific tastes, asking McLeod and design partner Lisa Bovell to avoid what they saw as West Coast stereotypes, looking instead for inspiration in modern architecture from South America and Europe.

“They asked us, is there any reason that everything here looks the way it does?” recalls McLeod. The answer was yes, but also no: local ecosystems of materials, craftspeople and bylaws always affect what’s possible to build.

Still some things are a matter of choice. There’s no rule stating oceanfront homes have to be bright, white and Scandi-esque, for instance. “There are ways that we can work with light inside the house … (using) other kinds of materials and strategies,” says McLeod.

To open up angles, McLeod and Bovell used “pulled apart” geometric forms, creating light wells: a courtyard planted with vegetation and an arbutus tree, for instance. They also added a vertical shaft running all the way from roof to basement and open stairwells surrounded by windows that bounce light and reflections around the spaces.

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“Even though the house is solid, it has a kind of openness to the environment and a kind of ephemeral reflectivity that we think is appropriate at the seashore,” says McLeod.

To stand up to the coastal setting while delivering the owners’ vision, McLeod and Bovell chose exterior materials carefully. Exposed concrete imbues a design edge, but also lends the structure permanence. Dark-stained wood cladding adds geometric texture. For this purpose, McLeod and Bovell selected Accoya — a type of modified pine, cured in ascetic acid or vinegar — designed to withstand the battering of a shoreside environment.

“Using wood on a flat surface near the waterfront in a Vancouver climate is not recommended generally, but with this particular choice, and with this dark stain on it, it looks as good three years later as the day it went on the house,” says McLeod.

From the south side of the property, it’s clear how thoughtfully the team worked with the natural topography of the site, orienting the house slightly westward along the beach edge. Rather than a flat expanse of glass facing the ocean, the home’s levels are staggered, with the upper floor cantilevered over the lower, creating a covered patio below. Concrete privacy walls rise to screen the second floor from neighbouring homes.

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On the main floor, glass doors slide wide open to the dining room and kitchen, and the dark-stained Accoya wood from the exterior carries to the interior ceilings. Sintered stone tile runs from the patio and throughout the main floor, even topping the kitchen island.

With this kind of indoor-outdoor flow, a separate outdoor living space isn’t really needed, says McLeod.

“By situating the dining room off those exterior spaces, it’s connected. You can open the doors and you’re outside,” he says. “So you don’t need duplicate sets of furniture.”

Custom oak millwork and flipper doors by Squamish-based Leon Lebeniste hide away nearly all storage and appliances in the home’s kitchen and dining area, putting the focus on a custom dining table and stools by North Vancouver’s Christian Woo Design. Both are examples of incredible craftsmanship and local talent, says McLeod.

“All this talent, ingenuity and care exists right here,” he says. “I think most people are unaware of the ability and technical proficiency of our local craftspeople.”

In the home’s living room, simple, low-slung modern furniture keeps all eyes on the view. An iconic suspended French Gyrofocus fireplace — converted to gas by Burlington-based CF+D — is another example of blending local elements with design inspiration from afar, says McLeod.

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Harmonizing with the feel of the natural surroundings, landscaped gardens encircle the living spaces inside and out. For instance, a rock-and-vegetation patio garden on the upper floor resembles the foreshore below. That was the idea, says McLeod — for the views to feel seamless, inside and out.

And with glass reflecting light to all corners of the home, you wind up seeing a little bit of both, all the time. It’s somewhat mesmerizing, especially in photos, says McLeod. “The experience of the seashore is part reflection, change and things happening simultaneously. So, I like to think it’s appropriate.”

Design: McLeod Bovell Modern Houses

Construction: Hart Tipton Construction

Millwork: Leon Lebeniste

Landscape: Botanica Design

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