When Yankee privateers menaced Nova Scotia's shores two centuries ago, it's hard to believe Sea Witch Cottage was not around to tempt their craving for plunder. The trim, Cape Cod-style home stands like a sentinel overlooking the narrow waterway leading to the historic town of Mahone Bay. But while its weathered shingles and classic proportions hearken back to the 1750s, the only Americans to besiege this modern-day house are curious tourists who sometimes stop to ask for a peek inside.
The architects of this historical ruse are Jan Kaye and Ray Morin, a team of accountants and antique buffs who built the house in the Cape style from scratch in 1995. Capes abound in Nova Scotia, introduced in the mid-1700s by transplanted New Englanders. The one-and-a-half-storey cottages were well-suited to their new surroundings, with high-pitched roofs to repel heavy snowfalls. A layout centred on the chimney and main entrance made it easy to build extensions at the gables to accommodate growing pioneer families.
These days Capes are a good fit for city types yearning for a laid-back lifestyle. After renovating a succession of older houses in Halifax, Jan and Ray were drawn to Mahone Bay, a postcard-perfect South Shore haven about 80 kilometres away. While antique hunting with a friend one Saturday afternoon a decade ago, Jan saw a circa 1770s Cape in the heart of town and snapped it up that same day. "I had always wanted an Old Cape," explains Jan, who loved the home's primitive feel, "and we needed a place to come and run to on the weekends."
When that home succumbed within a few years to a purchase offer too good to refuse, Jan and Ray found a coveted waterfront lot and set out to recreate a Cape based on old photos and plans found at the library. They were disappointed by their first trip to an architect who envisioned a modern adaptation, but then they hooked up with Barry Redmond of B. Redmond Design & Construction Ltd. in nearby Chester. It was a perfect marriage of homeowner and contractor, as Redmond and his carpenters threw themselves into the task of making the new look old. "We just hit it off," says Jan. "We had a phenomenal rapport with everyone, they were like a family. And the love they put into this house was just astronomical."
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