The property was just a kilometre from the village of Knowlton, in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, a five-acre swath of hills and ledges and mature trees, stepping-stone paths and cutting gardens, on the border of an old golf course. The plan was to build an indigenous home similar to the farmhouses they had renovated in the past. Still, owner Kathy Marsh needed to be convinced. “I’m a real country girl,” she says, and she worried about the proximity to Knowlton, a tiny town whose charms attract an influx of tourists on weekends. In the end, she came around, lured by the beauty and the history of the land.
Nine years later she is still entranced by the home she and her husband, Peter, built; by the triple-bloom lilies, hydrangeas and lilacs she has salvaged on the grounds; by the antiques and vintage collectibles on display in changing tableaux she has created around the new-old house.
Do-it-yourselfers at every turn, Peter and Kathy’s approach to home building entailed searching through magazines for house plans that appealed to them, and then altering the plan to customize it. They chose a seaside shingle style, shingle houses being common to the area, and it had to have lots of slopes, dormers and angles to reflect what Kathy describes as the “complicated” landscape. On a fall day, the house, with its classic farmhouse palette of red cedar shingles and trim in ivory and muted green, blends seamlessly into its setting.
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