Just outside Vancouver, there's a house perched high amid a cathedral of towering cedars – so high that eagles soar by the windows. Two hundred feet below, a river races through mossy terrain, sending sheer curtains of mist skyward to lazily drift across the home's tall panes.
Hycliffe is what the owners call her – an old-English name evoking majestic stone estates on vast, verdant lawns. But Hobbit-like is how the house's designer sums up this rural home's warm mysticism and blithe spirit.
"My husband and I are very different kinds of people," says owner Jessica Motherwell. "He has a strong nautical streak, I have a strong nature streak." Common ground is found in the couple's mutual spirit of fun, and in their four-year-old daughter, Emily. Given the owners' disparate personalities, creating an interior environment that reflects their diverse interests could have been a momentous task. But as designer Nina Hamilton saw it, melding the couple's distinct loves with their love of children was accomplished by giving traditional West Coast style a lighthearted appearance, and balancing the home's earthy roots with bright whimsy.
Hobbit-like is arguably the most fitting description for a house that is both an adult's and a child's fantasy. Constructed of primitive, natural materials in dark tones, and with breathtaking vistas of forest and sky evident from all the home's many vantage points, this house embodies the rugged grandeur that is the West Coast country utopia. Yet inside, there is a playful spirit at work, with cheerful colour palettes, plentiful patterns and touches of caprice to demonstrate the family's reverence for youth and young people.
"When we bought this house three years ago, it was because I liked the idea of having a natural retreat," says Motherwell. "But there were elements of the house that didn't suit us. None of the windows faced the river, and there was no sense that the house was in a rain forest. I wanted natural materials and fabrics and lots of real wood. And we have a small child, so we can't pretend there won't be spaghetti sauce on the couch. The house had to be family friendly in both look and feel."
So Motherwell and her husband, Bill Richardson, embarked on what was to become a two-year renovation process, turning a modest, 50-year-old rural house set high in the hills outside of Vancouver into one more befitting the home's spectacular setting and the family's mischievous energy. What began as a minor bedroom renovation soon became a total transformation involving architects, electricians and a full cast of craftspeople, including interior designer Nina Hamilton, who made her appearance a full year into the project. "We were in a meeting with an electrician about the lighting plans," says Motherwell. "He suggested bringing Nina in. I had hired architects and builders but I was nervous about working with a designer – the interior design is the most personal, intimate part of the journey."
In what the owners now consider to be a case of poetic irony, it was Hamilton who played a starring role in the dramatic conversion of the home's interior. She began by giving the house a foundation of natural materials. Wood, slate and weathered glass were used inside wherever possible.
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