The weekend house to which Torontonians Ruth and Andrew Smith frequently retreat is a handsome mid 19th-century stone house near Cobourg, Ontario. The low-lying home, which appears rooted to the earth, retains a number of original features, such as the wooden floors and stone fireplace. Where it has been necessary to renovate, it has been done so seamlessly that it is all but impossible to detect where old elements end and new ones begin. But that wasn't always the case.
"We've owned the house for 13 years and, until recently, hadn't done anything to it, aside from some very amateurish painting," explains Andrew. "We spent most of our time doing the gardens." By his own reckoning, much of the interior decor dated back 20 years, and was the product of the previous owner. The house, he admits, was "getting very tired." But the real impetus for change was the state of the home's indoor pool. With the wood in the pool house rotting, the Smiths acknowledged they were in for some major restoration work. According to Andrew, the secondary "driver" in what would eventually become a large-scale renovation and redecoration was their desire to add a screened-in porch, someplace they could eat when the mosquitoes descend. A chance encounter led the couple to their architect.
"I was driving down the road one day and ran into a neighbour who had been driving near Lindsay and saw a house that had been beautifully restored," says Andrew, who jotted down the name of the architect: Toronto-based John Robert Carley. Coincidently, Ruth had just registered at the University of Toronto for an evening course taught by Carley's wife, landscape architect Victoria Lister Carley. And as if that weren't coincidence enough, Carley later learned that his mother had once attended bridge parties at the Smiths' 150-year-old home.
Different colours for the kitchen's new upper and lower cabinets render them old-fashioned looking without being 'precious.' Similarly, granite countertops give an age-appropriate look. The room's design incorporates the couple's existing chopping-block island.
If their initial meeting seemed at all serendipitous, the Smith-Carley partnership would soon blossom into a solid meeting of minds. Carley has established a reputation for artful restorations of aging dwellings. And with good reason. In approaching work on a century home, Carley believes, "You always start with something that has a lot of appeal. There's something there that the owners love. The question is, how do you amplify and advance it?"
Or, in the case of the Smiths' pool house, remove it. "One of John's first questions was, 'Why do you need an enclosed pool?'" recalls Andrew. The thought of removing the enclosure (not an original feature) clearly hadn't occured to the couple. However, once the decision was made to retain the pool, but lose the building that housed it, the project developed in new directions – or as Andrew says, "it grew like Topsy." Through an inspired combination of restoration and renovation work, the interior was transformed. And the Smiths' desire to add a tower adjacent to the house was realized ("We always thought it would be nice to have a tower to get above the house for a better vista," they say). It's a folly that clearly delights Carley. "There's a great formal tradition in Britain of being able to walk through the landscape to an observation tower. Here, as with all follies, there was no need for it other than a desire to survey the property. But it gives them a different perspective." The view from the new, 22-foot-high vantage point encompasses not only the couple's pond and extensive gardens, but Lake Ontario in the distance. And in a novel twist, the three-level tower also accommodates the couple's new, elevated, screened-in porch. "It's a bit of hike to get there," notes Andrew, but clearly worth the walk.
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