This is the story of a new house that appears as if it has always been part of the landscape. A Canadian country place with a European outlook and an elegant, unpretentious personality. A large family home that's both refined and down to earth, pretty and practical - one that serves, in part, as an inviting guest establishment and business enterprise, and that, above all, reflects the owners' original sense of style. This is the story of the house that Maria and Wouter Eshuis built.
In fact, the couple didn't start from scratch. Shortly after emigrating from Holland in 1982, they purchased a 50-acre spread on the edge of London, Ontario, acquiring with it a barn and a rambling, disjointed house. The aluminum-clad house had evolved over time, originating with a tiny rundown cottage, which the Eshuises traced to 1836, and expanding through two subsequent additions that contributed to its ad hoc feel.
In the early 1990s, the Eshuises cut loose the original cottage, and shifted it across their property, where they envisioned it reborn as a guest house. (In fact, once it was moved, gutted and refurbished, the cottage, which was previously featured in Canadian Home & Country, was dubbed Belle Vie, and launched as a charming, and utterly private, poolside bed and breakfast.) Next, deeming the middle portion of the house unworthy of renovation, they demolished it, leaving only a circa 1970s section, consisting mainly of bedrooms, standing. Having taken time off from various entrepreneurial endeavours in order to work on the house, the couple camped here with their four children (a fifth was yet to come) while a new house took shape around them.
The structure now encompasses a generously proportioned living room, with high ceilings and tall double-hung windows, and the bright, uncomplicated dining room that easily accommodates the family's 12-foot-long table. The new large, unfitted kitchen has a welcoming European Country atmosphere - a style distinguished by its cottage style whitewashed pine beams, floor-to-ceiling tiles, and the massive AGA cooker that is the centrepiece of both the kitchen and the couple's current business, AGA Canada. (As retailers of the legendary English cookers, the Eshuises use their own capacious kitchen to stage cooking demonstrations.)
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