Western Living Summer 2021

50 Years of Western Living

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GR 2 AW A N D 0 2 1 AR GE D W ORG IN NE IE R

79 HOMES + DESIGN

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One to Watch

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Jennifer Jong of JYJ Ceramics brings vintage whimsy to her pottery designs.

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50 Years of Western Living

We’ve had five decades of celebrating life in the West, and what a joy it’s been. This issue is dedicated to the people, the designs, the innovations and the moments that have been a part of Western Living since that first issue back in 1971.

24 B.C. & ALBERTA L VOLUME 50 L NUMBER 5

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COVER: James Cheng: Tanya Goehring; Martha Sturdy: Raeff Miles; Alda Pereira: Clinton Hussey; Gregory Henriquez: Carlo Ricci; Paul Lavoie: Martin Tessler; Cornelia Oberlander: Yoshihiro Makino/Trunk Archive; Arthur Erickson: Gregory Crow.

This page: kitchen: Provoke Studios; Joe Wai: Brian Howell; Jennifer Jong: Cooper and O’Hara; Cedric Burgers: Kyoko Fierro; Karl Stittgen home and Robert Burgers: Martin Tessler; Douglas Cardinal: Yousuf Karsh

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COVER: James Cheng: Tanya Goehring; Martha Sturdy: Raeff Miles; Alda Pereira: Clinton Hussey; Gregory Henriquez: Carlo Ricci; Paul Lavoie: Martin Tessler; Cornelia Oberlander: Yoshihiro Makino/Trunk Archive; Arthur Erickson: Gregory Crow.

This page: kitchen: Provoke Studios; Joe Wai: Brian Howell; Jennifer Jong: Cooper and O’Hara; Cedric Burgers: Kyoko Fierro; Karl Stittgen home and Robert Burgers: Martin Tessler; Douglas Cardinal: Yousuf Karsh

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WESTERN LIVING editorial publisher Samantha Legge, MBA editorial director Anicka Quin art director Jenny Reed travel editor Neal McLennan assistant editor Alyssa Hirose editor at large Stacey McLachlan contributing editors Karen Ashbee, Julia Dilworth,

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EDITOR'S NOTE

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7 $5.99 Western Living Summer 2021

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TO 50 YEARS OF WESTERN LIVING

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Follow Anicka on Instagram @aniqua

It’s a mammoth task, distilling 50 years and thousands of stories into just one issue. As you’ll discover in the pages that follow, a large part of our process involved poring over our archives to discover where we’d come from as a magazine: the stories we told that are a time capsule of how we’ve lived in Western Canada for the past five decades—the homes, the dinner parties, the destinations we’ve explored and the many, many sexy ads for hot tubs (you’ll see just a sample of those on page 30).

But a big part of what we wanted to do was to give space to others to share their own memories, too. We knew we’d want to highlight the great designers who’ve literally built and designed our cities for the better: the people whose work has been a big part of Western Living’s past, but who also created the building blocks for many more generations of designers’ works now and in the future.

And so when we started planning how we’d celebrate Western Living’s 50th, I sent a note out to dozens of designers and architects to ask what the magazine has meant to them, and who has been their inspiring light along the way. The memories were often very sweet (architect Allison Holden-Pope compares saving her first appearance in WL to saving your first dollar as a store owner) and sometimes laugh-out-loud (architect Jeremy Sturgess recalls how, when he and a WL editor arrived at a photo shoot, the house was in such disarray that they’d needed to roll up their sleeves and start cleaning). And all shed a little behind-the-scenes insight on the people you’ve seen in the magazine over the years. (Look for “My First Time” throughout this issue.)

And because so many of the inspiring stories they passed along to me were too good not to share, we called on today’s top architects and designers to talk about their heroes in this issue, too. There’s architect Michael Green on Arthur Erickson, landscape architect Amelia Sullivan on Cornelia Oberlander, interior designer Robert Bailey on Robert Ledingham and more. You’ll get an insider sense of why these acclaimed designers are so deservedly celebrated by their peers— and how they shaped the way we live today.

I hope you’ll enjoy this trip down memory lane as much as I have. Western Living is 50, and, lucky for us, she has so many more stories to tell. Thanks to all of you for being a part of that long life—and I look forward to seeing what’s next for her in the decades to come.

The many faces of Western Living.

Art director Jenny Reed designed the cover as a tribute to a few of the folks highlighted in our 50th Anniversary Issue, including...

1 James Cheng, the architect who changed Vancouver’s skyline (page 52).

2 Martha Sturdy (page 102), whose gorgeous designs translated to a fashion story in our March 2000 issue (page 128).

3 A celebration of both the infill (page 40) and the man behind these plans, Jeremy Sturgess (page 57).

4 Omer Arbel’s process-driven designs (page 110).

5 Alda Pereira’s ever-evolving interiors (page 76).

6 Cornelia Oberlander, who created celebrated, landscape-led designs (page 32).

7 Gregory Henriquez and design dynasties (page 79).

8 The prince of Bel-Aire, Paul Lavoie (page 62).

9 The rule-breaker, Arthur Erickson (page 34).

VISIT

anick a quin, editorial director anick a.quin@westernliving.ca

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Anicka Quin portrait: Evaan Kheraj; styling by Luisa Rino, stylist assistant Araceli Ogrinc; makeup by Melanie Neufeld; outfit courtesy Holt Renfrew, holtrenfrew.com; photographed at the Polygon Gallery

50 Years of Western Living

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N E W & N O TA B L E • P AT T E R N P E R F E C T P O T T E R Y • 5 0 Y E A R S O F W E S T E R N L I V I N G

TR AD E S ECR ETS D esig n e d by CHRIS HUNTER , H U N T E R O F F I C E S Q UA M I S H

Photo: Provoke Studios; contractor: Kia Kaha Construction

The Look: Let the Light In Photographers love their light—so when the shutterbug couple behind Provoke Studios approached architect Chris Hunter (principal of Hunter Office Architecture) about designing their Squamish worklive space, he set about creating a 3,500-square-foot home that took a holistic approach to optimizing natural light. On the second level, sunlight trickles down through a roof deck hatch and past fir beams to pour over the not-quite-ceilingheight bedroom wall and through the glass bannister to the kitchen below.

(Said bannister also offers optimal sightlines for Rufus to watch over proceedings from the mezzanine.)

A sliding glass door and oversized clerestory window to the courtyard brings in light from the south. Materials like white and oak cabinetry (by Generation Woodworks) and crisp white walls were selected to further amplify the natural light. And yet, despite all the windows at work here, Hunter has ultimately managed to create a cozy hideaway in a West Coast paradise. “As much glass as there is, it’s still so private,” he says.

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This outdoor dining lifesaver is called Amai, which is a Flemish expression for “wow.”

The wow-worthy new furniture system from Extremis (from $5,180) consists of an adjustable tabletop between two A-frame supports, and a retractable canopy for extra-sunny days. steelcase.com

My favourite part of curating a space is adding those tiny finishing touches that make a big difference—and, especially in these times, that’s true for outdoor spaces, too. These botanical trivets not only protect the tabletop, they also provide a beautiful pop of colour and shape. The super-adorable aster, plumeria, banana leaf and monstera leaf designs are made with merino wool felt and Oeko-Tex certified dyes, and they’re totally biodegradable (not that you’d ever want to throw them away).

—Alyssa hirose, Assistant Editor

For more editors’ picks visit westernliving.ca

Three’s Company

There’s enough light for everyone when the Rope lantern set ($249) comes to party. The geometric cut-outs in this trio are designed to look pretty with or without candlelight shining through, so they’re great decor day or night. inspirationfurniture.ca

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The Suave sectional (from $8,736 per section) is made using injected polyurethane, making it super waterresistant (and ready for anything else the outdoors has to offer). Dutch designer Marcel Wanders aimed to create a calm, sensual vibe in this collection—mission accomplished. gingerjarfurniture.com

Look familiar? Ligne Roset’s Lapel outdoor chair ($1,201) was inspired by the collar of a coat or shirt. There haven’t been too many opportunities to dress up lately—this woven armchair definitely wore it best. livingspace.com

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HOMES + DESIGN ONE TO WATCH

Well Clayed

JENNIFER JONG, ceramic artist In some ways, Jennifer Jong’s day job as a process engineer makes her perfectly suited to her other passion, pottery. While Jong’s day-to-day work puts an emphasis on products being complete and correct—and both engineering and throwing mugs foster her maker nature—ceramics allows her the creative freedom to work on different kinds of building, glazing and decorating, without necessarily achieving success. “There are a lot of failures in ceramics,” says Jong. “You’ll try a lot of things that either don’t work out or don’t turn out how you thought they would—so you have to be pretty accepting of loss and mistakes.”

The ceramic artist fell in love with pottery through classes at her local art centre in Edmonton, and in 2019 she launched JYJ Ceramics. The failure rate of ceramics projects hasn’t stopped her from trying new techniques, like slip-casting, which uses plaster moulds made from found cut-glass pieces instead of a pottery wheel. While the forms themselves are often simple—mugs, bowls, vases—Jong overlays intersecting lines and circular patterns with a vintage vibe, often bringing in whimsical floral patterns and decorative carved bases. Jong’s current work includes a small collection of floral decals on mugs and vases for Nanaimo’s Gallery Merrick, and she’ll be participating in the Edmonton Folk Fest’s online Artisan Market from August 5 to 8.

“I find ceramics very soothing and it’s a great way for me to destress,” says Jong. “I can lose myself for hours on the wheel—when I get into a good rhythm, I can tune everything out and it’s relaxing and almost meditative.”—Bridget Stringer-Holden

All-Star Cast

Cooper and O’Hara

One of Jong’s favourite pieces is this design she slip-cast from a vintage cut-glass bowl—just like the one your grandma would have displayed hard candies in—to create her signature geometric angles.

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The very first issue of Western Living (left) featured a home designed

by Hassell/Griblin and furnished by interior designer Robert Ledingham. Other stories in the issue included a feature on “supergraphics,” with tips on how to do it yourself (apply tape, paint), and a “Soft and Clinging” fashion feature with designs by Yolanta and Woodwards.

As we celebrate this magazine’s half-century of reflecting life in Western Canada, it’s worthwhile to note that its history goes even deeper than that. Its predecessor, Western Homes and Living, still has many a fan for its ’50s- and ’60s-era documentation and celebration of West Coast Modernism. But when it folded in 1970, Liz and Jack Bryan picked up the torch, reinvented, and carried on.

Liz—an editor at WHL—and her husband Jack founded Western Living in 1971, after Liz began feeling disheartened by the lack of B.C.-based magazines. And she soon discovered she wasn’t alone.

“When Western Homes ceased publication in May of last year,” she wrote in her first editor’s letter, “its absence was felt by a great many readers and advertisers, many of whom took the trouble to phone me personally and ask if and when it could be started again. Well, here it is.”

They sat at the table, they dreamed, they made it. “I wrote stories, Jack took photos,” she told us back when the magazine was but a youthful 40 years old. “Type went out for setting and we pasted up the magazine (yes, on our kitchen table) page by page. Looking back, it wasn’t much of a magazine. But Western Living was born, and when something is born, you keep it alive.”

And how grateful so many of us are for that kitchentable dream.

It’s been a journey going through those 50 years of magazines to create this special anniversary issue.

Just how do you distill 50 years and thousands of pages into just one issue? Every decade and every

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Cover and home: Jack Bryan; fashion: Michael Taylor and Jack Bryan/Western Living February 1971

Fifty years ago, Western Living was born on a kitchen table, and I can’t think of a more fitting launchpad for the five-decade journey that followed.

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former editor brought their own unique take on what it means to live in Western Canada.

For the team here, that distillation was a divideand-conquer approach, with our editors and art director each bringing a stack of bound copies from the archives to our homes, and using the magic of our iPhones to scan anything that leaped out from the pages. And the discoveries ranged from the familiar—a 1992 story on the legendary architect Arthur Erickson’s career, titled “Arthurtexture”—to the delightfully surprising (a 1989 story on “The Premiers at Home”; a 1971 bathroom with pink and orange cabinetry and vibrant violet counters; so, so many ’70s-steamy hot-tub ads without a stitch of clothing in sight). We regularly stumbled across stories from the past that felt incredibly au courant... like an April 2000 piece on “working when you want, where you want, from your chic satellite office at home.”

The 50 moments we’ve highlighted here are the result of that massive effort, and we could have easily spotlighted tenfold more.

So what does it mean to be a part of a magazine that celebrates where you live, as I have, for almost two decades? It’s everything, really. In the nearly 20 years that I’ve been at this publication, it’s continued to feel like more than just a magazine that lands on our readers’ doorsteps each month. It’s the Western Living you grow up with—the one you see your parents flipping through, that sits on the coffee table to inspire you for the time when you have your own home, your own coffee table. I’ve always been proud of the fact that readers feel a kind of ownership of the magazine; proud that we’ve helped create a community that celebrates life in Western Canada—which we all know is one of the best places on earth.

When Liz and Jack created WL to fill a void, they touched on something that was so very needed, and continues to be.

Coming off of the last year and a half, when our world was both united and fragmented—isolated to stay safe, together in our battle to come back to some form of normalcy again—it feels all the more poignant to be celebrating our togetherness, and where we’ve been for the last five decades.

Happy 50th WL—with so many thanks to all of you who have been a part of her very long life. May we all come together again over our kitchen tables for many more years to come.—Anicka Quin, editorial director

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Arthurtexture: photo-sculpture: J. Labonte, home: Roger Brooks/Western Living November 1992; Vander Zalms: Jane Weitzel/Western Living October 1989

A few of the delights we spotted while exploring 50 years of back issues, from top: “Arthurtecture” from November 1992, chronicling the rise and fall and rise of Arthur Erickson; a profile on “The Premiers at Home,” included Bill and Lillian Vander Zalm in October 1989—spotlighting both his life in charge of B.C. and hers running the Fantasy Gardens theme park; in “Second Base” in April 2000, writer Anne Suche admired a few “chic satellite offices from home,” so, so many naked spa ads in the late ’70s—including this Jack K. Lillie Ltd. spa ad from February 1978.

50 YEARS OF

#1CORNELIA AMELIA SULLIVAN ON

OBERLANDER

THE CONNECTOR

During the making of this issue, we lost a legend: Oberlander passed away at the age of 99. We’re honoured to have been part of documenting her incredible legacy all these years.

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Yoshihiro Makino / Trunk Archive

T

he thing about Cornelia Oberlander is that, yes, she was a landscape architect’s landscape architect. But she was also a planner’s landscape architect, an academic’s landscape architect and, without a doubt, an architect’s landscape architect. Her talent and skills spanned disciplines and, whether an eager student or a weary professional, you could be inspired by her.

Her research was meticulous (I’ve never met a more voracious reader)—and like a lot of the best out there, she’d also have a gut feeling, and a gut concept, that she never strayed from on a project. She had an unwavering belief in her work—and that’s very uncommon in our field. There is an adage that “landscape finishes last,” but Cornelia’s projects are landscape-led. When she was studying at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, landscape architecture was still, as she’d often tell me, “all curlicues and watercolours” (and I love water­ colours). It was decoration, and it looked to the past. It had not abstracted, it had not yet modernized.

Friedman House: Selwyn Pullan/Western Homes & Living February 1955; Wikimedia Commons

50 YEARS OF

Cornelia was part of a group of post-war landscape architects who changed that. She understood modern design vocabulary and the crucial role of the landscape architect in knitting the building to the site. She was an early proponent of both an ecologically sensitive approach, and to designs that centred people and opportunities to experience nature. She drilled into me that landscape architecture should be collaborative, socially responsible and ecologically resilient.

So if you are Team Landscape, you had a champion in Cornelia—and boy did you have a breadth of projects to be inspired by in her work. She started out in community planning, public housing projects and designing playgrounds—the play environment she did for the Children’s Creative Centre for Expo ’67 was revolutionary. She brought ideas from Europe around risk and spontaneous play, and letting children be in charge. She also completed several private gardens—her first project in Vancouver, the Friedman House with Arthur Erickson, is one I’m working on now—and of course locally treasured public spaces like Robson Square, the Museum of Anthropology and the Library Roof.

The blessing and the curse of landscape architecture is that it is science and art, and Cornelia was committed to both. In her work, I’ve always admired that her big gestures appear to be simple abstractions of geometry overlayed with organic forms inspired by the environment, always with function at its core. She has also always been comfortable keeping her plantings simple.

If you look at something as impressive as Robson Square, her first large public project in Vancouver, it’s really about those hanging roses, the trees and a simple understory. Done. Later, she’d get into more “wilding” in her designs, with grass and seeding mixes allowed to grow shaggy, with very intentionally placed clusters of trees. She was using naturalistic vegetation from a very early stage—working on green roofs and with meadow mixes as early as the ’70s, which was unheard of at the time. She has also never shied from a difficult site, and her commitment to emerging sustainable practices and materials often catches me out.

I worked with her for nearly five years when she was already in her 90s, primarily in the role of a facilitator, and to help archive her office. I’d also go along with her on site visits, where she’d revisit her work and make sure it was still in keeping with the vision. We’d take detailed pictures about where paving stones might be failing, or where a plant wasn’t doing well. And she’d send a note to some junior architect or assistant, telling them how she felt about what she saw, and what they needed to do to make it right. Or she’d revisit the homes she’d designed over the years, meet the owners who’d become friends, for tea and a talk, and inevitably she’d later send them a few links to plants that would make for good replacements, or a gardener they should connect with.

It was a wonderful gift and a great privilege to be able to archive how she worked, and as we went through her office, one of my favourite things was finding the scribbles and doodles that were tucked in among her designs. She’d always doodle while

she was on the phone with some planner, or contractor or even a politician. On repurposed hotel stationery, you’d find a sketch of a staircase where she’d found the rise and the run of the stairs to be pleasing or the spacing between two city trees—and she’d write down everything.

She was someone who never stopped working, and never stopped believing in the work. She was a doer, first and foremost.

There’s that classic Cornelia story: she saw masses of smoke rising up from Jericho Beach and discovered all the washed-up logs were being burned and wasted. It was a simple call to the Parks Board superintendent, with Cornelia saying, “Why don’t you leave those logs out, spaced along the beach, and families could have lunch there?” And, of course, that’s been a legacy design at our beaches ever since. There are moments like that all over Vancouver, and all across the country. All thanks to Cornelia Oberlander.

—Amelia Sullivan, Landscape Landscape

The Friedman House (left) in Western Homes & Living, February 1955, Oberlander’s revolutionary design for the playground at the Children's Creative Centre at Expo ’67 (below).

Robson Square

The rooftop garden at the Vancouver Public Library’s Central Branch.

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50 YEARS OF

Our predecessor magazine, Western Homes & Living, featured a stunning Erickson design on the July 1964 cover (below and far right).

Below, the late Erickson in his home in 2007.

#2

MICHAEL GREEN ON

ARTHUR ERICKSON W

hen I was young, I didn’t know any architects. What I knew was that I loved to build and draw and that certain buildings made me feel different, though I wasn’t sure why. My mother would bring home library books on architecture and I would pore over them.

Year after year, Arthur Erickson’s work resonated most for me. I lived in Ottawa with East Coast trees, but Erickson’s houses sculpted into the magic of West Coast forests, framed views of mountains drawn in the clouds at SFU and shone light on First Nations art and culture through UBC’s Museum of Anthropology in its bold, rugged, clean architecture. I was fascinated with the thought of how these very Canadian buildings that I had never visited might feel to walk around and to be inside. So, in time, I too became an architect, and, in time, I moved to Vancouver and began to truly appreciate the profound nature of Erickson’s work.

In Canada, I believe, Erickson remains

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the most important architect in our modern history. When I moved to Vancouver, I came to see his work in the context of the brilliant people like Nick Milkovich and so many other design leaders here he collaborated with. What I came to admire most was the ambition of the entire office and of Arthur: his ambition to try new things and push new limits; to change the conventions of the day and to make our city better.

The Law Courts became my favourite building in the city, and remains so to this day. That building broke a convention. It was intended to be vertical, but Arthur saw it differently. His choice was to lay the vertical preconception into a horizontal building. The result creates a building that is alive with community, in it and over it and underneath it. And the longer I’ve worked in Vancouver, the more I’ve come to think that I’m not sure an architect could do that today. Too often our city has put up roadblocks to truly innovative thinking.

The architect’s role is to push boundaries and rules and challenge institutions to solve real problems and to make living in our city better. Arthur’s work in the city exemplified the idea that we should aspire and innovate here. Nature is our backdrop but the walls we choose to build deeply matter.

I think what Arthur showed us was boldness and leadership, and true vision.

He also reminded us what a great team of shared values can do. He created a foundation for our city that we all still cherish. He elevated design from here to the world stage.

Arthur’s aspiration of what our city should pursue is what we as designers must pursue. It’s important that we move beyond following the stifling rules, red tape and nimbyism and instead challenge institutions—from the VAG to the City of Vancouver—as to what we should be. That’s our job. And Arthur showed us how.—Michael Green, MGA

Portrait: Martin Tessler; Home: Fred S. Schiffer/Western Homes & Living July 1964; Law Courts: Ezra Stoller

THE RULEBREAKER

50 YEARS OF

Erickson’s groundbreaking designs at Robson Square and the Law Courts (below) are a testament to his refusal to follow convention.

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50 YEARS OF

#3 WHEN

PAST BECAME PRESENT AGAIN

“We were excited to be doing this, but we also knew that all eyes would be on us,” said architect David Battersby of BattersbyHowat in our July 2017 issue, “seeing what we’d done and not done.”

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Martin Tessler/Western Living July 2017; archival image: Dick Busher/Arthur Erickson Foundation

W

e promise we’re not going to make this whole issue a love letter to Arthur Erickson. But his work so succinctly demonstrates just what’s special about West Coast Modernism: a connection to this beautiful, wild place. Case in point (if you’ll bear with us for just one more swoon): the Eppich House, a terraced masterpiece that slinks down the West Vancouver landscape (as much as concrete can slink, anyway) to open up sprawling views of artfully positioned reflecting ponds and a verdant garden. Originally built in 1972, it enjoyed a respectful rehabilitation in 2017—gracefully executed by BattersbyHowat—which was featured in these pages. While the inhabitants and furniture (and rainscreen technology) may have changed, it remains, and always will remain, an ode to where we are.

Arthur Erickson’s Eppich House was built in 1972 for Helmut and Hildegard Eppich.

Martin Tessler/Western Living July 2017; archival image: Dick Busher/Arthur Erickson Foundation

» » » » » » » » »

#4 RECLAIMING THE

50 YEARS OF

VANCOUVER SPECIAL

The MAD house from MA+HG (this photo, left and above) from October 2014; One Seed Architecture’s Multigenerational Vancouver Special (below) from September 2020.

Amodio: Janis Nicolay/Western Living October 2014; One Seed: Martin Knowles/Western Living September 2020

T

housands of Vancouver Specialstyle houses were built between 1965 and 1985, popular for their affordability and the way they maximized the square footage of narrow city lots. But while the ubiquity of the front-gabled, two-storey homes made them seem, well, lessthan-special to some critics, as a new generation of architects tackle renovations and makeovers, the oft-maligned form has gained a newfound appreciation. (A beloved design shop here in town even takes its name from the style... and, yes, sells prints of the now-iconic homes to boot.) One Seed Architecture and Interiors specializes in reimagining the spaces, while other designers use the typology as an inspiration for a whole new wave of multi-generational architecture—like the stunner by Marianne Amodio of MA+HG Architects, featured in our October 2014 issue. That’s something pretty special, indeed.

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“It was over 30 years ago that Western Living first showcased my work, in a feature that ultimately became my formal introduction to the West Coast design community.

That feature led to one of my largest projects at that point in my design career. Over the years, Paul Sangha Creative has evolved into a dynamic team of 18 designers and staff, working on projects around the globe, and we are grateful to WL for being there each step of the way.”—Paul Sangha, Paul Sangha Creative

Sangha: John Douglas Kenny/ Western Living August 1989

my first time

caesarstone.ca

Sangha: John Douglas Kenny/ Western Living August 1989

Amodio: Janis Nicolay/Western Living October 2014; One Seed: Martin Knowles/Western Living September 2020

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50 YEARS OF

#5 ALL OF OUR LOVE FOR

THE INFILL

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Architect Jeremy Sturgess designed this infill called the Schafer House, featured in our June 1982 issue (left and above). While individual rooms were small, the space soared in the centre: a colonnade supported the second floor, keeping the space feeling airy.

Schafer House: Jack Bryan/Western Living June 1982; original architectural drawings courtesy Jeremy Sturgess

H

ow did Calgary, a city whose population density rivals that of Ulaanbaatar, come up with the infill? The engineering and design feat, wherein a single-family home on a standard 50-foot lot gives way to two freestanding homes on their own 25-foot lots, seems like it should be the purview of packed Kitsilano, not rolling Marda Loop.

Perhaps it takes a Prairie ingenuity to make it work (coupled with a Prairie sense of wanting a freestanding abode), but the form is now ubiquitous throughout inner-city Calgary—a few were even spotted in Edmonton’s tony Glenora a few years back. Credit goes to the dreamers— from a young Jeremy Sturgess (see #12) to Chris Lemke of Alloy Homes—who reimagined what a single-family house could be, in the unlikeliest of spots.

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Schafer House: Jack Bryan/Western Living June 1982; original architectural drawings courtesy Jeremy Sturgess

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50 YEARS OF

“It occurred to us, wouldn’t it be amazing if you were standing just over this precipice,” says architect Arnold Chan of Ply Architecture, of this home in our June 2017 issue. The silt banks, composed of glacial till, required four 13-metredeep, 28-inch-diameter concrete piers.

#6

CONFESSION: WE CAN NEVER RESIST A GOOD

CANTILEVER

S

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K m

Ka fo

my first time

how us a home that seems to float above the West Coast wilderness, and we’re swooning. Case in point, this dreamy hillside studio designed by Ply Architecture, on the property of winery owner Ian MacDonald, that hangs above the Naramata Bench vineyards below.

Ply Architecture home: Jon Adrian; Allison Holden-Pope portrait: Lillie Louise Major; One Seed kitchen: Janis Nicolay

L E

“One Seed was named One to Watch for Eco Design in the 2013 Designer of the Year awards, and I most definitely still have several copies of that issue of Western Living magazine.

It’s the equivalent of saving that first dollar you make in a retail business!”

—Allison Holden-Pope, One Seed Architecture and Interiors

“K su re to lit

Ba m

“B sa an St

Ka th

Cr

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ade for the comfortable, earth-friendly consumer or the businessperson who wants branded clothing and masks that shout sustainability, Kasi Bamboo is a dream come true.

The Canadian clothing company based in Vancouver, BC, was founded by Kasia Fryklund who took a sharp turn off the road to law school to follow her passion for clothing and product design.

“Kasi Bamboo is based on the belief that clothing should be sustainable, comfortable, and long lasting,” Fryklund says. “A large reason why I chose bamboo, besides its silky feel and that it is easy to care for, is because it is a self-regenerating grass that requires little to no fertilizer, tilling, or pesticides.”

Bamboo is also naturally hypoallergenic, thermal regulating, moisture wicking, and odour and bacteria resistant.

“We were shocked when in a week we sold out of 300 masks, built up a large waitlist, and were in high demand in high-end retail stores,” Fryklund says. “It all happened very quickly!”

Last year, Kasi Bamboo sold and donated over 20,000 bamboo face masks locally and internationally, and the product has become a bestseller on Etsy and in retail stores and galleries across North America. Its clothing has reached all over the world and has been spotted in places like Australia, France, and Nigeria.

“I am thrilled the t-shirts and other clothing are all selling quickly,” Fryklund says. “I have heard more than once from customers that they are blown away by how soft the fabric is. My intent was to create a luxury, eco-friendly product that everyone who needs clothing can afford.

“The goal is to leave the world a little better than how I found it and, ultimately, to be a good role model for my three-year-old son.”

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“Before launching my line, I went through dozens of bamboo fabric samples from all over the world until I found the most comfortable and eco-friendly option, ”Fryklund says. “Our fabric is OEKO-TEX 100 Standard certified and sourced from 100% wild, organic bamboo.”

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Kasi Bamboo was set to launch early 2020, but when the pandemic hit, the team shifted production to face masks to meet the growing demand.

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#7

50 YEARS OF

WE’LL NEVER TIRE OF AN

OPEN-CONCEPT KITCHEN

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This fresh Andrea Rodman kitchen (right, March 2017) blends seamlessly into the dining and living space.

A maple butcher block is the centrepiece of this Terry Tanner–designed kitchen (above, March 1984). Jeremy Sturgess eschewed a family room in favour of an open-concept kitchen in this renovation (right, March 2003).

to shift. Entertaining manuals began to promote more casual ways to host, suggesting buffet service instead of intricate, multi-course meals. The kitchen, once relegated to the back of the home, was now the hub of it all: a nucleus for all of life’s comings and goings.

From Western Living’s earliest days, the magazine celebrated this shift to openconcept layouts, and we’ve never looked back. Our Kitchens issues over the years

may have featured a variety of aesthetic choices—hello, 1980s oak shaker cabinets—but the one constant is an embrace of layouts and features that encourage togetherness. Think roomy islands, plentiful storage, welcoming lighting and joy-sparking finishes (even if they are oh-so-’80s oak!) that make it a place you love to return to, again and again. If the kitchen is the heart of the home, the beat has stayed strong.

Andrea Rodman kitchen: Ema Peter; Tanner kitchen: Gordon Henderson; Sturgess kitchen: Roger Brooks

H

ere’s a Western Living drinking game you should never play: take a shot every time we quote someone saying the kitchen is “the heart of the home.”

But even with the frequency this phrase shows up in our interviews with designers, homeowners and architects, it never feels cliché or forced. It’s just the truth— the kitchen is at the centre of it all. It’s the place we entertain, where the kids do homework at the island, where we gather at the beginning and end of our days apart, share a glass of wine or a meal or a long conversation. No wonder this is where we see the most exciting, inviting renovations and innovations, year after year. To so many of us, the kitchen is home.

This hasn’t always been the case.

Up until the 1920s, most middle-class homes would have the kitchen tucked out of sight; interior design of previous decades focused on formal dining rooms instead as the place for entertaining or dining (and showing off your social status). These were veritable trophy rooms, a place where homeowners would display fine china and decor in special cabinetry, and put special emphasis on intricate place settings and tablescapes.

But once electric appliances started hitting the market after the First World War, the kitchen had new appeal. Sweaty castiron stoves were replaced with sleek modern units that homeowners were excited to show off. By the 1940s and ’50s, homes were being designed with “eat-in” kitchens, and dinner and hosting habits started

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#8

50 YEARS OF

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DOUGLAS CARDINAL IS A VISIONARY

Yousuf Karsh

T

here’s a school of thought that if Doug Cardinal had been born in Toronto, he’d be hands-down Canada’s most famous architect. That if the sweeping, utterly original lines of St. Mary’s Church had been in Rosedale, instead of his native Red Deer, his name would be known by high school students.

That if the striking regional college he designed was in North York, not Grand Prairie, his name would be spoken with the same reverence used for his iconoclastic inspiration, Frank Lloyd Wright. It’s a compelling argument for anyone who happens upon his work and immediately wonders: Who made this? But there’s a competing theory saying that whether Cardinal was born in Alberta, Ontario or a penthouse on Park Avenue, he would forever be defined by his Indigenous heritage and every project, every commission and every design would still be met with the generations of prejudice that accompanied him through every step of his career.

When writer Dan Stafford wrote a lengthy profile of Cardinal for us in 1981, he didn’t shy away from the racism that had plagued Cardinal’s career, but little did Stafford know that he had also caught the great architect at a pivotal time.

Cardinal was already working on the Edmonton Space and Science Centre and the next two decades would see the most high-profile commissions of his career: the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau and then the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. Now well into his 80s, Cardinal continues to work, crafting flowing, curvilinear designs that could not have come from any other hand. And if he’s not the household name he should be, he nonetheless has created a legacy of blazing one’s own path that will be a beacon for all Western Canadian designers to follow him.

Canadian Museum of Civilization (now renamed the Canadian Museum of History) in Gatineau, Quebec.

National Museum of the American Indian: Carol M. Highsmith; St. Maryʼs: DJC Architect; Canadian Museum of History: Joanne Clifford

The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.

St. Mary’s Church in Red Deer.

The First Peoples Hall (also referred to as the Grand Hall) at the Canadian Museum of History.

Canadian Museum of Civilization (now renamed the Canadian Museum of History).

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© 2021 La Crema Winery, Windsor, CA

#

50 YEARS OF

Portrait: Martin Tessler; Polygon Gallery: Ema Peter

Patricia and John Patkau, photographed at the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver in June 2021. The gallery features a sawtooth roof, which allows for northern light to flood the gallery from up high, with minimal shadows (inset).

#9

THE MATERIAL WORLD OF

PATKAU ARCHITECTURE

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49

The Audain Art Museum in Whistler won the firm their 19th Governor General’s Medal.

Because it’s located within a floodplain, the museum is elevated a full storey above the ground and features a steeply sloped roof to better cope with Whistler’s enormous snowfall.

I

t’s a little different today, but for roughly the first 35 years of Patkau Architects’ existence, an observer might have looked at the Vancouver firm’s extraordinary but scant output and thought, gosh, is that all that these people produce?

Well, that observer should be congratulated on their perceptiveness, because it can now be revealed that the seemingly merely brainy, creative and detail-obsessed team assembled by John and Patricia Patkau was in fact an elaborate front for a madscientist operation conducting esoteric and even violent experiments with building materials and assorted other stuff that might someday have the potential to become building materials. Moreover, their innocent-sounding Material Operations has recently resulted in not just a book from Princeton Architectural Press, but also in a slate of projects that draw upon those investigations.

As an illustration, you could take the primeval-looking temporary skating shelters the firm concocted for Winnipeg’s river valleys using a material called bendy ply, or the astonishing Temple of Light on Kootenay Lake, which makes too many other examples of organic architecture seem like student projects. There’s also their work on the revolutionary 14-storey wood-frame academic tower currently in design development at the University of Toronto. But instead, let’s choose Whistler’s Audain Art Museum,

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which added to the firm’s traditional awards haul with not just their 19th Governor General’s Medal (by far the most of any Canadian firm), but also one of nine 2018 citations from the American Institute of Architects and one of 20 international awards selected by the Royal Institute of British Architects. It has also led to five residential commissions in Vancouver, Victoria, Whistler and Bowen Island—all currently under construction and employing wood in imaginative ways.

Museums, along with homes, schools and libraries, have always been a Patkau focus and are particularly well-suited to a firm that prefers rigour to showiness yet recognizes that memorability and experience are crucial parts of the formula. The awareness is in evidence at the fine new Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver, as well as a museum awaiting construction in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

With its dark metal roof, Whistler’s Audain recedes into its forest setting, suggesting at first glance a well-executed structure of the contemporary minimalist sort, a case of modulated expectations that is then blown to smithereens by an intriguing wood entryway, a soaring wood atrium and the exquisite hemlock cladding on soffits and overhangs.

That, at least, is the effect the Audain seems to have exercised on the several prospective homeowners who contacted the architectural firm after the museum’s opening. The houses now under construction will have to await future editions of the magazine, but none will be derivative of the Whistler landmark or, well, anything at all, believes architectural critic Adele Weder. “So many other architects who reach this level of success have become victims of their own renown, rehashing or even exaggerating the same forms that made them famous in the first place, but the Patkaus have never fallen victim to that,” she says. “They draw on timeless principles of design to create architecture that is authentic, contemporary and unique to every site.”

A quick spool through three of the firm’s most recent residential completions confirms the observation, and how.

The Linear House on Salt Spring Island stripes 276 feet across its meadow site, a model of minimalist restraint yet one that resembles from above a Christo installation more than a standard-issue residence. The three-dimensional (if not more) Hadaway House in Whistler is downright expressive for a Patkau home, “a spaceship in the middle of log cabins,” as described by John Patkau. And the Tula House on remote Quadra Island is a rigorously plotted and hyper-engineered marvel that cantilevers over a cliff, with the glass floor to prove it, yet deftly shrinks into the landscape, all but invisible to passing boats.

Interviewed in the firm’s Vancouver office, the husband and wife team make for a fine blend of yin and yin, he admittedly a bit more effusive, she speaking up primarily to add detail about why specific sites were selected or design solutions pursued. A couple of things become especially clear. Four decades in, the firm is the busiest it’s ever been, with sufficient work locally that it now almost completely restricts itself to projects in B.C. And despite nudging toward an output that can no longer be described as scant, the mad scientists remain very much at play.—Jim Sutherland

James Dow/Patkau Architects

50 YEARS OF

50 YEARS OF

From WL’s November 1980 issue, this Tsawwassen, B.C.-based home designed

by James Cheng (far left) was made to orient the public spaces toward the water—and without window coverings to let the light shine in. For this multigenerational house that appeared in the September ’94 issue (left and below), Cheng designed the home as a modest series of cubes to better integrate into a more traditional neighbourhood.

Opposite page: The architect in his library, in 2016. His impact on the skyline of the City of Vancouver is immeasurable, with designs that include Fairmont Pacific Rim (top right), and the renovation of the former Sears building to become Nordstrom in 2017 (middle right).

#10

MITCHELL FREEDLAND ON

JAMES CHENG

THE MAN BEHIND THE SKYLINE

i'D

never planned to run my own business as an interior designer. So when I moved to Vancouver from Toronto back in 1989, I narrowed down my job search to three firms, with the thought of growing within the company. James Cheng’s architectural firm was one of the three, and luckily he hired me that day.

I enjoyed working there—I so appreciated what he was doing.

He wasn’t working on the grand scale of projects he does now, but from the beginning he always had this incredible sensitivity in his aesthetic. He had a way of articulating space, shadow and light— and he knew how to manipulate those things to the best effect.

That sensitivity is something he taught me well—if you walk into one of his projects today, you perceive these elements, as well as how every detail has been thought through. While his private

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residential work was always very client driven, it’s his impact on the city of Vancouver and its skyline—the Shangri-La, Harbour Green, the Fairmont Pacific Rim, Terminal City, the VPL conversion, Nordstrom and so many more—that will truly be his legacy.

After I’d been working there for three years, I went to talk to him about compensation, as you do. Jim, being the savvy businessman, said, “I can’t afford to pay you more, but you could rent a desk here, and work on contract from my office.” And so, that day I went to City Hall to register as a sole proprietor.

I was not a designer that had these dreams of owning my own firm, but it all happened because of Jim. It really was so generous of him to offer that—not a lot of people would be that support­ive. And that day I didn’t get a raise was the beginning of a nearly 30-year career for me.—Mitchell Freedland, Mitchell Freedland Design

Western Living November 1980: Jack Bryan; Western Living September 1994: Roger Brooks; portrait: Tanya Goehring; Nordstrom: Ema Peter

Ema Peter on James Cheng Jim’s an accomplished photographer himself, and we’ve had many long conversations about the art of capturing a great photo. He’d hired me to photograph Nordstrom in downtown Vancouver, after his team had renovated it back in 2017, and so I was down there late at night to capture the right light. I’d found the perfect angle, but was frustrated to see a man right in the way of my line of sight, ruining my shot. I went up to him—only to discover it was Jim himself, photographing the building at the same perfect angle.

Of course!—Ema Peter, photographer

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50 YEARS OF

#11 PETER DAVID BATTERSBY ON

CARDEW

THE QUIET MODERNIST

I

met Peter when I was in my mid-20s through my close friend Michael Kothke, who was working with him at the time. As a young architect, I was in awe of Peter and envious of my friend’s opportunity to work with someone held in such high regard. Over two decades of becoming acquainted with Peter, I came to understand that he, for good or bad, completely dedicated his life to architecture and design in a way that most people could not imagine nor have the energy for.

For almost a decade, his office had been less than a block from ours. Heather [Howat] and I would see Peter almost daily, often at the crack of dawn. Occasionally he would suggest we go for lunch. He would have one thing or another he would want to talk to me about. Questions like: What is a reasonable persquare-foot cost on a house these days? What is the going rate for a young architect’s salary? These inquiries would always make me chuckle, but the fact that he directed them at me filled me with pride.

Peter’s work was an inspiration to the end. You could see Peter in everything he did— put together as he always was personally as well, clearly and rigorously ordered, never too much nor too little. Heather and I deeply admired this in Peter’s design work. He never lost himself to trends or gimmicks. His work has a characteristic humility, an always recognizable yet timeless style.—David Battersby, BattersbyHowat Architects

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John Sherlock/Western Living August 1984

Listen, we love wood and concrete as much as the next West Coaster. But it’s always a thrill to remember that you can’t box us in—and this gleefully postmodern home by Peter Cardew, featured in our August ’84 edition, is the perfect example. White, boxy and industrial, it’s a true swerve from the rustic romanticism of the time, but Cardew, of course, stuck the landing. “For all of its Modernist intent, it’s not an ice palace at all,” reported writer (and later WL editor-inchief) Carolann Rule. “How can something so perfect be a step in the wrong direction?”

but how ?

that’s how

ANDREARODMAN.COM

50 YEARS OF

my first time “Fond memories include the photo shoot for Dave Shafer’s house in 1984, when writer Anne Suche and I arrived with the photographer and the bachelor’s house was in a state of chaos. I vacuumed while Anne did the dishes.”

—Jeremy Sturgess, Sturgess Architecture

Joshua Lawrence

Jeremy and his wife, architect Lesley Beale, in the garden of their home in Victoria.

Beale was a partner at Sturgess Architecture.

#12

THE TRUE WEST ARCHITECTURE OF

JEREMY STURGESS westernliving.ca / s u m m e r

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50 YEARS OF

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Sturgess made a splash in our first ever Residential Design Awards in 2003 (top left, top centre). In 2011, we featured this sleek modern lakeside design (top right), but you'll spot his work in the September '84 issue (above) and in our 2006 RDA special, too (bottom).

2003 home: Martin Tessler; June 2011 home: Robert Lemermeyer; September 1984: Roger Brooks; October 2006.

IN

2003 when we created the Residential Design Awards Hall of Fame, our very first inductee was Jeremy Sturgess. In part, it recognized that, while he often did important commercial work, at its heart the architecture firm he founded in Calgary in the early 1980s was predominantly focused on designing beautiful modern houses. But more importantly, it recognized that, even among all the luminaries you see on these pages, Sturgess stood alone for the pan-Western focus of the projects his firm undertook. We first featured one of his houses in 1982 in an article written by our legendary Calgary editor Anne Suche, and in the following almostfour decades, we featured more than 30 of his projects, which is also a record for an architect in our pages. Of course, given his locale, most were in Calgary and environs, but sprinkled in there were several Vancouver condos, a Bowen Island retreat, some Okanagan abodes, a few Kootenay Lake cabins, a visitor centre in the Yukon and a Skybridge in Jasper National Park.

More so than any other designer, he put his imprint on all of the West. And in so doing he has also put his imprint on this magazine, not just with his work but by always stepping forward to help judge our Designers of the Year, championing other Alberta designers and generally helping us foster the idea that Western Canada has its own distinct design ethos... and it’s a pretty amazing one at that.

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FOODIE GETAWAYS NEAR VANCOUVER:

360-DEGREE DISCOVERY OF NEW SUMMER FLAVOURS

F

ancy yourself an adventurer?

A lover of the unusual and little known? Shake off the last few months at home and discover new foodie locales around the province. As we slowly follow BC’s Restart plan, it is time to think about some drool-worthy getaways–all in a safe and responsible way. Check out these easy-to-get-to destinations around BC where the local flavour is calling and worth staying a few days to explore.

West - Sunshine Coast The Sunshine Coast is known for its cozy communities and postcard views, not to mention it is a fishing, paddling, and hiking dream spot.

Sechelt is the perfect hub for launching day trips and is a hidden gem for culinary delights, including El Segundo, where bold, fresh, vibrant flavours come to life in a colourful fusion curation.

Or, finish a day of exploring with appetizers at The Porch Restaurant, located at the Oceanside Resort in Davis Bay. After dinner, settle into a room at this newly renovated hotel, or spend the night at

the Driftwood Motor Inn, Sechelt’s beachside hotel, but not until you’ve had a nightcap at its Beachside Kitchen Bar and Patio.

That Chicken Place alone is worth the trip to Powell River. Prepare your tastebuds for original West Coast fried chicken and poutine (and old-fashioned milkshakes, twisters and the ultimate Chicken and Waffle Sandwich). This is the perfect family-friendly spot when staying in Historic Townsite.

It’s all just steps away from heritage spots like the Old Courthouse Inn, Townsite Public Market, and Townsite Brewing, so all your needs can be met without even getting in the car.

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East - Coquitlam and Surrey Get ready for a flavour extravaganza east of Vancouver, with hundreds of opportunities for tasting inter-national foods. Stay in the heart of Korea Town along North Road in Coquitlam at The Executive Plaza Hotel & Conference Centre Metro Vancouver.

Try Hashtag Café, which is turning heads with its Cro-Waffles, a combo of a croissant and waffle on a stick. Kokoro Tokyo

Masezoba is heavenly for ramen and Kimbab Cheonguk is the top spot for Korean.

While in the area, don’t miss Surrey’s newly launched Spice Trail–a culinary and retail experience focused on South Asian, Malay, Korean, and other ethnic cuisines. With more than 30 participating establishments,

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you’ll want to stay a while.

Try Chacha’s Tandoor & Grill for a mix of street food and North Indian cuisine with tandoori try Guacamole Mexican Grill’s Ceviche de Camarones and Pollo Mole, paired with the non-alcoholic horchata. For a taste of the Caribbean, visit Di Reggae Cafe and try the oxtail soup on the brand new patio.

See as much as you can with a stay at the Civic Hotel, Four Points by Sheraton Surrey, Holiday Inn Express & Suites Surrey, or Comfort Inn & Suites–all of which offer Spice Trail packages.

North - North Shore Visit one of the birthplaces of freeride downhill mountain biking: Vancouver’s North Shore, where visitors can hike, zipline, rock climb, and of course, dine–all in one day. Plan a getaway to the Shipyards District, a historic area just a short SeaBus ride away from Downtown Vancouver. Enjoy cozy fire pits, diverse food offerings, and abundant patio-hopping and the very walkable North Shore Ale Trail, all nestled between the scenic backdrop of Vancouver’s city skyline and the North Shore mountains.

Hotels like the Seaside Hotel and the North Vancouver Hotel are offering up some incredible deals (vancouvernorthshore. com) for summertime stays including BOGOs with Reckless Biking eBike rentals and gift vouchers for Lonsdale Quay Market.

South – Richmond Richmond’s art, history, and foodie action are largely influenced by the city’s multicultural identity and its diverse population of Asian residents. From Japanese food courts to Hong Kong-style cafes, Chinese barbecue stalls to dim sum institutions, there’s lots of ways to start experiencing the city’s unique food culture.

Revel in options on Wai Sek Kai (Food Street), a three-block stretch of

the Golden Village with 200 restau-rants, or grab your chopsticks and some extra napkins and get ready for a taste explosion on The Dumpling Trail, a collection of restaurants serving up some of the most delectable dumplings this side of the Pacific.

Book an overnight stay in the new Versante Hotel opening at the end of July, or consider Steveston whose fishing heritage and fresh-off-the-boat seafood beckon at Fisherman’s Wharf.

Make this a summer to remember for more reasons than one. Go beyond the usual, with an open heart and open mind, and discover something new, right here in BC. Plan your summer getaway now at ExploreBC.com.

CONTACT: http://www.hellobc.com CONNECT: Facebook @HelloBC | Twitter@hellobc | Instagram@hellobc

6/30/21 10:43 AM

#13 PRINCES 50 YEARS OF

THE

OF BEL-AIRE

W

e love seeing how designers create a space when they’re their own client, and for our Designers at Home issue in January 2015, that meant touring one of our all-time favourite houses: the home of designer Paul Lavoie, whose work has appeared regularly in the magazine in four decades now. (His first time was when he won “Search for Style” back in 1991.) It’s a gorgeous and rich update to a mid-century home in Calgary’s BelAire neighbourhood (we couldn’t resist the headline!), but what we recall most was the call we received from Lavoie after it ran. His phone was ringing off the hook with compliments, he said, but most important to him was the fact that the portrait featured both Lavoie and his husband, Doug. “I love that it’s Doug and I, and it’s absolutely no big deal,” he told me. “To think 30 years ago, BelAire would have been a conservative neighbourhood of oil tycoons.” And then he laughed, “Now everyone wants to be at our house!”

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Martin Tessler/Western Living January 2015

Doug and Paul Lavoie in their backyard in 2015, with their dog Edward.

50 YEARS OF

When the Lavoies purchased this 1961 home in Bel-Aire, the backyard was covered in asphalt; Lavoie installed the pool and landscaping, along with a 22-foot Nanawall on the back of the house (top right).

The living room (top left) is an eclectic mix: mid-century pieces, including a sofa that Lavoie had recovered, antiques (the gold wingback chairs were purchased from a client) and end tables from William Switzer. The fireplace is original, and the perfect spot for a piece

by Graham Gillmore (above).

On the flip side of the fireplace (middle right), a TV glides down into a cabinet when not in use, transforming the space into a mod cocktail room.

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50 YEARS OF

Douglas Cridland in his home in Calgary’s Eau Claire neighbourhood, from our January/ February 2015 issue.

#14

PAUL LAVOIE ON

Martin Tessler

DOUGLAS CRIDLAND KING OF THE PRAIRIES

w

hen I graduated from Mount Royal back in 1987, I had two job offers—one was in commercial work, and the other was with Douglas Cridland. I ran the dilemma by my instructor, and she said, “Well, you’ll either get the Hollywood of Western Canada, or you’ll be stuck behind a desk. You know what you need to do.”

She couldn’t have been more right. I spent 13 years in Hollywood, and it was wonderful. Back then, Douglas Cridland Interior Design was a small office. Calgary

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50 YEARS OF

For a kitchen in our March 1981 issue (below), Cridland’s clients wanted a “lean, industrial look.” He included open restaurant shelving—a good 20 years ahead of his time.

The designer worked with architect Jeremy Sturgess on this interior from our May 1990 issue (below), and with many local artisans—including Winnipeg glass artist Warren Carther.

was about to hit one of its many booms, and we had an A-list clientele, which Douglas really nurtured in this wonderful way. Honestly, the city had been a desert of residential design before he brought us water.

Douglas would give clients a classic collection of luxury and comfort with a wonderful sense of Western sensibility. He was the first person I ever heard use the term “prairie palette.” The colour palette here needs to understand soft light. That’s what gives you this dense quietness you have in the Prairies. He was the only designer I knew who loves a north light, because he could control it, how you feel in a room.

He really was the king of a sophisticated, muted combination of things—in one of Douglas’s designs, you felt enveloped in luxury and texture and fine detail.

He really taught me details, those refinements in design that you’d never learn in school—little tricks, like how to insert an extension cord between the carpet and the baseboard, in a way that you’d never know there was a plug there. He was all about the details, and he never missed a thing. In his own home, he hated the look of light switches so much that he hid them in the closets.

If there was anything that surprised clients about Douglas, it was his vocabulary—here was this sophisticated and sought-after designer who would easily drop an F-bomb into a sentence. But it instantly endeared his clients to him—he had this way of connecting with people.

Not only were you getting this great designer, you were also getting this largerthan-life personality—and he made you feel like you were a part of something special.

—Paul Lavoie, Paul Lavoie Interior Design

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Martin Tessler/Western Living January 2015; Jack Bryan/Western Living March 1981; John Sherlock/Western Living May 1990

Cridland’s own home (left and below) features collections of artifacts picked up on his travels, paired with a lifelong art collection—he started it when he was just 16.

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50 YEARS OF

#15

THE CLASSIC ELEGANCE OF

T

rendy, Coco Cran was not. The grand dame of Calgary designers grew up in Europe with a diplomat father (he was Norway’s consul general to France), and even after relocating to Alberta in the early 1970s, she never lost that touch of continental glamour. In the four decades in which her designs appeared in these pages, there’s nary a project that screams dated. No walls of glass blocks, no cringe-worthy sea of pastels, no white on white on white. Instead there’s a studied vein of classicism through every room: Persian rugs, heirloom furniture and wonderful art adorning the walls—as in this Calgary home that ran in our December 1997 issue. It was all texture and warmth, and made even the newest space look like it had its very own history. It was elegance without the snobbery, class without the classicism. But trendy? That would have been strictly amateur hour.

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Robert Lemermeyer/Western Living December 1997

COCO CRAN

When it comes to major life goals, many Canadians likely include financial stability and a lasting relationship on their list.

But as it turns out, one may be easier to find than the other.

Love and Money by the numbers

Love and Money, a recent survey from TD exploring the financial behaviours of more than 3,000 married, in a relationship or divorced North Americans, found that only two in five (40%) Canadians surveyed believe they’ve found their soulmate. The survey also reveals that half of Canadian respondents (49%) believe it’s easier to find true love than financial success. Additionally, the survey shines some light on how Canadian couples surveyed are faring when it comes to their finances during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The impact of COVID-19 pandemic

A year into life under COVID-19, the pandemic continues to disrupt nearly every aspect of our lives including our financial well-being and ability to celebrate life’s milestones with loved ones.

According to Love and Money, 60% of Canadian couples surveyed report that they’re having trouble meeting their financial goals during the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the pandemic has led to behavioural changes for 51% of Canadian respondents who say they’ve adjusted their spending habits because of COVID-19: • 62% reduced overall non-essential spending • 44% cancelled vacations or travel • 36% delayed larger purchases • 28% cancelled unnecessary subscriptions & memberships • 19% set limits on individual spending That said, many Canadian couples surveyed are feeling cautiously optimistic about their future financial goals.

• Nearly nine-in-ten (88%) Canadian respondents are currently saving for something.

• For those in a committed relationship, the survey also reveals that COVID-19 has made talking about money easier: • Nearly half (45%) of Canadians surveyed say the pandemic has led to more open and constructive conversations about their finances, including the need to adjust spending habits by reducing spending on non-essential items and delaying larger purchases.

Communication is key

The survey shows that conversations about money are critical, especially when sharing your finances with another person. In fact, “not talking about money with my partner on a regular basis” is the top financial mistake noted amongst Canadian respondents.

Additionally: • 77% of Canadian couples surveyed say they typically open up about their finances within the first year of their relationship – including 56% who get very candid within the first six months.

• Among Canadian married couples and those in a committed relationship, 85% of respondents say they’re talking about money on a monthly basis.

• Millennials appear to be the least likely to put their financial cards on the table, with only 53% of Love and Money Canadian survey respondents saying they would discuss money in the first six months of a relationship the lowest amongst all generations.

As you might expect, the survey also shows that when it comes to love and money, not all conversations go smoothly… So, what are Canadians arguing about when it comes to their finances?

• Perhaps unsurprisingly, arguments about money were most common amongst divorced respondents (29%) vs 20% of respondents in relationships.

• 10% of Canadian couples surveyed say they argue about essential joint expenses such as bills or mortgage payments, while 16% argue about optional joint expenses such as dining out or subscriptions.

• Lastly, the Love and Money survey reveals that 8% of Canadian respondents who are in a relationship admit that they are keeping a financial secret from their partner - including a secret bank account and/or significantly largecredit card debt.

What’s Keeping You Up at Night?

When asked about their greatest financial fears, Canadian survey respondents shared a number of concerns, including: • 16% said ‘not being able to retire’ • 14% said ‘not being able to afford my current lifestyle’ • 11% said ‘not being able to pay off debt’ • 9% said ‘loss of employment’ • 8% said ‘not being able to provide for our family’ TD is helping many Canadians with their finances during these uncertain times through personalized financial advice and everyday banking capabilities via online tools, like TD Ready Advice and TD MySpend.

About TD Love and Money Survey: Research company MARU/Matchbox conducted the survey among a nationally representative sample of Canadian consumers focused on couples and money. The online fieldwork occurred between December 2, 2020 and December 8, 2020. A total 1748 completes were gathered in Canada and 1709 in the U.S. Data have been weighted by age, gender and region to reflect the population.

Margin of Error on the total sample is +/- 2.3%.

The late architect Joe Wai, at the Chinese Benevolent Society in Chinatown in 2006. Wai was a tireless booster of the neighbourhood in the face of repeated calls for redevelopment.

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Brian Howell

#1

50 YEARS OF

#16 THE ENDURING LEGACY OF

Illustrated plan: Western Living September 1981/Joe Wai Architects and Don Vaughan Associates Landscape Architects

JOE WAI

L

ooking through five decades of archives, it’s astounding to see how often a celebrated place seems to embody the famed architect who created it. Bold and unconventional personalities tend to make bold and unconventional buildings. So when one looks at the understated facade of the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden, is it really hard to appreciate how the creation of this first formal Chinese garden outside of Mainland China sprung from the imagination of the low-key Joe Wai? Or that the wonder that awaits past the demure entrance mirrors Wai’s own quiet brilliance? Wai graduated from UBC in 1965 and, after apprenticing at several bold-name firms and doing a stint in London, he returned to Vancouver and opened his own spot in Chinatown, a neighbourhood that he painstakingly shepherded over the next four decades.

Wai helped stop the proposed freeway from decimating the neighbourhood and created affordable infill housing for the area, now colloquially know as “Joe Wai Specials.” But his crowning achievement came with the creation of those gardens, which Carolann Rule documented for us in an essay in September 1981, a testament to the enduring legacy of understated genius.

The Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden is one of the most important expressions of this historical form anywhere in the world. In our September 1981 issue, we ran plans for the not-yet-built garden in conjuction with a long feature on Wai’s dogged determination to get the project built.

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THE UNDENIABLE w BRILLIANCE OF

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e moved into Robert Ledingham’s former office in Vancouver in 2015, and I cannot count the number of times I’ve looked at some aspect of the space and thought: Bob really did think of everything here. He designed it in 1986—and while we’ve made minor updates to the space, its layout and bones are both timeless and so thoughtfully considered.

It’s the fluidity of movement he’s designed here, the incredible sightlines.

There are clerestory windows that are all facing north, so you have this wonderful painter’s light coming into the space.

Clipper Lounge: John Sherlock/Western Living October 1984; living room: Dick Busher/Western Living October 1984

#17

In our October 1984 issue, writer Daniel Wood celebrated Ledingham’s architectural approach to interior design. For the Mandarin Hotel in Vancouver, (top) Ledingham brought pattern and colour to a rich architectural background.

In an Edmonton penthouse (above), classic modern furniture designs pair with natural fabrics like suede, leather and mohair velvet.

Bob Ledingham (this photo) passed away in 2013.

50 YEARS OF

The way the rooms are articulated, the space feels so much larger than it is. And, of course, there’s ample wall space for artwork, which we have fully embraced.

Together, all of these aspects form an environment that inspires and enriches the work that we do every day. When clients walk through the space, it sets the tone for a project and gets the team excited about all the creative possibilities. I feel very privileged to be here.

This space is really a reflection of Bob’s work. An incredible aspect about him was his passion for collaboration, drawing out ideas to always find improvements in a concept. He was such an elegant man in the way he worked with clients and the way he talked about a project; you could really visualize where he was taking you with his thought process. When I look at the projects we worked on together, Bob always had a way of creating spaces that were elegant, functioned beautifully and, above all, were timeless in their design.—Paul Sangha,

Martin Tessler/Western Living July 2015

Paul Sangha Creative

Robert Ledingham elevated our understanding and appreciation of interior design on the West Coast. He worked with iconic architects, but Bob’s work really was interior architecture. He raised the standard of what we think about as interior design in Canada.

I have had the great honour of updating several his homes, and they are not easy homes to undertake. The reason is this: in a good design, once you remove one part of it, the rest of it must be reconsidered. If a design is tight, there’s no millimetre left unconsidered. His work was impeccable. If I am being asked to revisit one of his properties, it is really only because the finishes have finally exhausted rather than the design itself.

Robert brought a worldliness to his clientele that was not accessible at the time he was designing. He travelled the world, hunting for special pieces to build a collection of furniture, sculpture and artwork, and he would draw from that collection for his clients’ homes. Today this is still every

In WL’s July/ August 2015 issue, Ledingham’s partner, architect Robert Lemon, wrote about their vacation home for more than 30 years, Estergreen.

designer’s dream—how incredibly special to bring that kind of love and consideration to the home.

Robert really brought West Coast interior design to the world, and raised the standard to which we aspire to work to in the city today.—Kelly Deck, Kelly Deck Design When I was promoted to editor-in-chief of WL back in 2010, I was honoured that Bob both wrote to congratulate me, and then offered to take me for lunch to one of his favourite spots. He was a legend, of course, and I’d worked with him a few times when he was a judge with our Designers of the Year awards, which he had been since their inception in 2008. But I realized very quickly during that lovely lunch over a decade ago that, despite his celebrity, he was really without ego or pretense. We went for pizza at the now-defunct Campagnolo restaurant, just around the corner from his office—and both the casual meal and the great conversation immediately put me at ease. I was in the presence of a design legend, but he never made me feel anything less than a friend and colleague, catching up over a slice and a glass of house wine.—Anicka Quin, editorial director When I think of Robert Ledingham, I always think of his immense talent as a designer, but also as a businessman. It takes a lot to put a firm together, and he built such an iconic interior design firm.

For all of us who have followed gingerly in his footsteps, he really set the bar at a very high level. I always think of him as being rather introverted, and it was proof that you can rise to the stature that he did without being gregarious. Everything he did to advance himself was done based on the quality of the work, and not a lot of peripheral noise.

He was such a champion of IDIBC and interior design as a profession, one that requires education, testing and registration, which really set him apart in the residential design category. He brought an intense professionalism to it.

He was really full spectrum in the

“It was at our rural retreat where we relaxed both our design differences and our souls,” wrote Lemon of Estergreen.

“My late partner and I had shared this beautiful patch of northern Whatcom County since we met in 1981.”

way he worked, from art to decor pieces.

I’m working with a client right now who worked with him, and we’re bringing some of his pieces from the previous home to the new home—and they’re so striking; they truly have great endurance.

In a way, he has had a strong influence on my work: the contemporary nature of his work, the refinement, the grace, the attention to detail, the architectural adherence. He always followed the forms of the architecture, and created architecture within a space—all of those ideas that rattle around in my brain every day. I try to formulate the same kind of substantive and time-enduring work that he did so well.—Robert Bailey, Robert Bailey Interiors

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50 YEARS OF

IN PRAISE OF

ALDA PEREIRA’S EVER-EVOLVING DESIGN

W

e’re never more thrilled than when we can peek behind the curtains into the homes of some of our favourite designers, and Alda Pereira’s Vancouver home was a highlight in our January/February 2014 issue. Our 2010 Interior Designer of the Year’s townhome has evolved four or five times since she’s moved in, and it’s likely changed since we photographed it, too—yet it feels fresh and current in these photos, a hallmark of Pereira’s designs. The avid collector—of stools, books, vintage cappuccino cups and serving trays—ensured that there was plenty of functional and beautiful storage in the space, including a sculptural, poppy red Cappellini storage unit. “The people and the dog stay, not the furniture,” she told us with a laugh.

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“I work in a 3D language, and that language is always moving and changing, so my space is, too,” says Pereira. “It’s experimental.”

Welcome to the Funhouse Quirky details give this designer home plenty of personality. The stainless steel Hay stool (top left) is great eye candy in the mosaic-tiled hallway, but doubles as extra seating during high-capacity dinner parties; a Frank Sinatra doll (middle left) keeps watch over a stack of Pereira's favourite design books; the stairwell houses a Moooi Carbon chair (bottom left); in the kitchen, a Ceci n’est pas une pipe tray acts as a playful piece of art when

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Martin Tessler/Western Living January 2014

#18

Alda Pereira (centre), husband Jon Kelly and daughter Allegra Kelly in her Vancouver home.

not in use (bottom right). Custom shelving in the dining area (opposite page) provides space for stowing all of Pereira’s books and treasures. “The small space keeps me disciplined,” laughs Pereira. “It would be horrifying how much I could accumulate if I had a larger space.” A red, sculptural Capellini storage unit offers even more hiding places for everyday clutter like bills and mail. “Pretty much everything has to function like that when you live in a home this size.”

W E S T E R NL I V I NG . CA

D E C E M B E R 2 0 13 | 57

Our heartfelt thanks!

We’re so grateful to all our sponsors, donors, participants and special guests who came together, beating as one to make the 2021 Heart & Stroke Gala: At Home Edition a true success! Together we raised over $350,000 in support of four incredible Heart & Stroke researchers in B.C. A special thank you to the many local businesses and individuals who donated fantastic items and services for the Gala auction. To learn more about the Heart & Stroke Gala, read about the researchers funded and to watch a recording of the event, visit heartandstrokegala.ca. We look forward to seeing you in June, 2022 for an in-person celebration!

Thank you to our 2021 sponsors:

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#

50 YEARS OF

DESIGN #19 DNA

Fred Hollingsworth’s Rudden House. Right: Fred Hollingsworth in the Trethewey Residence.

IS IN OUR

I

Russell and Fred

Rudden House and Fred in Trethewey Residence: Selwyn Pullan; Sturdy Residence: Derek Lepper

s a passion for design nature or nurture? It’s impossible to say, but the number of design families in our midst seems to suggest DNA may play a role.

Perusing the archives, we’ve been reminded of the handful of design dynasties our region has bred: acclaimed architects who raised a second generation of acclaimed architects.

From parent to child to the lucky inhabitants or users of their buildings—it’s a legacy that lives on and on and on.

The Hollingsworth Family Parent: Fred Hollingsworth passed away in 2015,

The breezeway in the Russell Hollingsworthdesigned Sturdy Residence in West Vancouver.

but he left behind an impeccable legacy. His postwar work shaped the look of the North Shore— including the impeccable 1946 home in Edgemont Village where his son, Russell, grew up.

Scion: Russell Hollingsworth is principal of Hollings­ worth Architecture today, transforming stone and concrete into striking mansions that represent “West Coast luxe” to a T.

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50 YEARS OF

The Burgers’ original home, designed and built in the 1970s.

Marieke Cedric

The Henriquez Family

Robert

Parent: Richard Henriquez,

whose commercial work has defined B.C.’s Lower Mainland— you’ve got him to thank for the Sylvia Hotel Tower and the Justice Institute alike.

Scion: Gregory Henriquez takes his dad’s communityminded architecture into the 21st century with a focus on inclusive, sustainable projects.

The two work side-by-side as principals at Henriquez Partners Architects.

The burgers Family

Mary

Parents: Marieke and Robert Burgers, who founded

Robert Burgers Architects in ’81. She’s the interior design master, bringing extensive influence from Dutch design into her refined work; her late husband Robert was an architect’s architect, a master of difficult sites and seeing beyond trends.

Scion: Cedric Burgers—with wife Mary Burgers, who acts as creative director for Burgers Architecture—is a passive housing expert who has picked up where his father left off to continue creating stunning residential projects that epitomize West Coast Modernism (always with a sprinkle of Scandi flair).

Justice Institute

Woodwards

Richard: Lucas Finlay; Gregory: Carlo Ricci; Robert: Martin Tessler; Marieke, Cedric and Mary: Kyrani Kanavaros; new Burgers home: Martin Tessler

Richard

In 2020, Cedric designed a new home for his mother—who did the interiors— which pivoted around a kitchen garden.

Gregory

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BLUEWATERCONCEPTS.CA

Richard: Lucas Finlay; Gregory: Carlo Ricci; Robert: Martin Tessler; Marieke, Cedric and Mary: Kyrani Kanavaros; new Burgers home: Martin Tessler

SERVING THE SEA TO SKY

D E S I G N - B U I L D - R E N OVAT E

Welcome To A Better Way To Build

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50 YEARS OF

Edmonton

Amanda Lwanga, Linger Design Studio We love this interior designer’s eclectic looks and the way she empowers her clients—many female professionals, like herself—to live their best lives through bold, functional design.

THE LOOKS BRIGHT, TOO

B

ring on the next 50 years. We couldn’t be more excited about the next generation of designers in the West—they’re creative, resilient and ready to take on the world. Here are a few favourites you’ll surely be seeing again in our pages to come.

Vancouver

Julia Mior, Julia Mior Rugs We’re hooked on Mior’s hand-tufted rugs and her focus on women’s bodies in her designs. Her work challenges tradition while paying homage to the role women historically played in the textile industry.

Calgary

Alkarim and Majida Devani, RNDSQR

Vancouver

This power duo is totally devoted to community: their gorgeous, multi-use innercity development projects are designed with families and accessibility in mind.

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Henry Sun, Henry Sun Studio Industrial designer Henry Sun was WL’s One to Watch for furniture design in our 2020 Designers of the Year awards. He’s breaking down the stigma around flat-packing with build-it-yourself furniture that’s stylish and strong.

westernliving.ca

TH

Amanda Lwanga: Romy Young; Julia Mior: Tanya Goehring; RNDSQR: Eymeric Widling

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50 YEARS OF

#21

WE EMBRACED

POMO

... AND THEN SNUBBED IT

The original caption: "The houseboat, moored at Richmond, shows off its triangular sail-boat shape.”

WE STILL WANT TO LIVE ON THIS

HOUSEBOAT P

lease consider this our formal request to board this Bob Todd-designed houseboat, built by homeowner Jim Moore and featured in our August 1974 issue.

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Jack Bryan/Western Living August 1974

#22

John Sherlock/Western Living January 1985

E

ye-rolling at old trends is almost as fun as celebrating new ones.

That was certainly the case with this Kitsilano mixeduse home that was called “chic” and “grand” in a 1985 issue (left) and then “possibly a little too perfect” and “certainly a little too colourful” in 2001 (right). It was designed by Architecton, the firm of Kanau Uyeyama, who crafted the space for both his home and his office.

In the 2001 issue, the home was used as a prime example of postmodern shame. Writer Trevor Boddy claimed “no architect will ever admit to using postmodernist forms.” Brutal.

Jack Bryan/Western Living August 1974

John Sherlock/Western Living January 1985

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50 YEARS OF

Scouting Out

Architect Fook Weng Chan camped on the grounds of this Salt Spring Island home before starting his design, and his mindfulness of the landscape shows.

JUNE 1996

Friendly Neighbour

#23

This modest West Vancouver cottage and separate studio designed by Harold Kalke, Candace Lundy and Russell Hollingsworth was built instead of one massive home, to ensure the neighbours still got the ocean view they paid for.

WE’RE ALL ABOUT THE

That’s on God This McLeod Bovell–designed West Vancouver home has floor-toceiling, ocean-facing windows wellsuited for religious owners—it’s heaven on earth.

MARCH 1992

Basic Matters Simple materials like clay, plaster and wood allow the view to be the real star of the show in this Bowen Island home designed by Werner Forster.

VIEWS T

hey say life’s about the journey, not the destination—but any hiker will tell you it’s hard to beat the view from the top.

Here in the West, we’re blessed with some of the most beautiful mountainscapes, seascapes and even skyscapes in the country, and our designers know how to craft a space that does the view justice.

Sometimes, it is what’s on the outside that counts.

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DECEMBER 1976

Walking on Sunshine This story was titled “Okanagan Sunshine House,” for obvious reasons. Architect Daniel White built the L-shaped home for maximum eastwest sunshine and that killer lake landscape.

Salt Spring: Janis Nicolay; West Vancouver: Martin Tessler; June 1996: Roger Brooks; March 1992: Roger Brooks; December 1976: Jack Bryan

SUMMER 2020

MAY 2014

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Frits de Vries Architects + Associates Ltd. is an award-winning architectural firm with a diverse portfolio of projects and a special expertise in residential design. Our client-focused team delivers innovative & thoughtful architectural solutions to projects of every size. We view design as a collaborative process between client, builder and architect, resulting in a truly unique architectural product.

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www.frits.ca

Frits de Vries Architects + Associates Ltd. Architecture

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1834 West 1st Avenue, Vancouver, BC

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info@frits.ca

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604.736.7820

6/28/21 10:39 AM

#24 T

THINKING

SMALL

iny homes may be trending in 2021, but the idea of living small—especially in forever-overpriced Vancouver—has had appeal for decades. Back in 2001, we ran a feature on a trio of sub-1,000-square-foot lots (bottom right), with homeowners who managed to squeeze Japanese sculptures, chandeliers and, heck, even a kid into spaces that looked far roomier than the floor plan would have you think.

In the ensuing years, Western Canadian architects and designers only further honed their gift for thinking big with a small footprint as laneway homes increased in popularity. Take this asymmetrical, open-concept stunner from Campos Studio (above, from the Fall 2016 issue of Western Living Condo), with clever storage and a flood of daylight, clocking in at just 592 square feet and punching far above its weight: it’s a pocket-sized dream home that inspires us all to rethink what it means to live large.

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The best small spaces offer flexibility. In the Campos Studio–designed laneway (above), custom-cut upholstered foam turns built-in millwork cabinets into a cozy L-shaped sofa by day, but remove the back cushions and you’ve got a guest bed for the grandkids.

Campos laneway home: Ema Peter/Western Living Condo Fall/Winter 2016; Chwelos home: Martin Tessler/Western Living September 2001

50 YEARS OF

Campos laneway home: Ema Peter/Western Living Condo Fall/Winter 2016; Chwelos home: Martin Tessler/Western Living September 2001

SHOWROOM: 8585 123 St. Surrey, BC V3W 6E2 HOURS: M-F 8am – 4:30pm 604.590.5999 | sales@pacificartstone.com | pacificartstone.com @pacificartstone

SPONSORED REPORT

Andrea Rodman Interiors

Brent Comber Originals

Burgers Architecture

We are an award-winning full-service design firm. We create unique, elegant and inviting homes, custom-designed around our client's lifestyle and tastes.

Brent Comber Originals takes inspiration from the unparalleled setting of the Pacific Northwest and has created a body of work that is interwoven and inseparable from the story of the landscape.

Burgers Architecture has earned its leading reputation through progressive environmental stewardship creating legacy architecture for the West Coast’s most discerning and conscious minds.

Each sculptural furniture piece is designed with the coastal lifestyle in mind, made from sustainably-sourced materials.

The firm’s philosophy focuses on the integration of critical regionalism and high performance design, brought to life through their accreditation and expertise in Passive Housing.

With our signature design process, we walk through the design planning journey with you as a team to create the home of your dreams.

Services include: Interior architectural design for both residential and commercial projects, project management, construction administration, 3D modeling and rendering, turnkey decor packages and fine art curation.

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Happy 50 th Anniversary from everyone at Brent Comber Originals to Western Living.

brentcomber.com

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burgersarchitecture.com

WESTERN CANADA’S TOP DESIGNERS AND ARCHITECTS

W

MONICA STEVENS DESIGN

Evoke International Design

Monica Stevens Interior Design

Quake Studio

We are a interdisciplinary design studio with extensive experience in a variety of design disciplines. Modern custom home design is our passion, with new builds and extensive renovations completed in Vancouver and Whistler.

Since the inception of Monica Stevens Interior Design, her firm’s talent and experience has brought both national and international projects and recognition.

Congratulations to Western Living Magazine on this 50 th anniversary issue!

We align ourselves with clients that share our minimalist aesthetic values and creative process, resulting in well-integrated design that doesn’t rely on overly trendy concepts: it’s about composition and the combination of form, function, and innovation to achieve the homeowner design objective.

evoke.ca

WL.Top DESIGNERS and ARCHITECTS_SUMMER_2021_V2.indd All Pages

Based in Calgary, Alberta, Monica Stevens specializes in high-end residential and recreational properties and exclusive commercial and public spaces.

Over the past three decades she has established a reputation for providing innovative solutions tailored to her client’s needs, creating comfortably elegant and thoughtful interiors.

A multiple finalist in Western Living’s Designer of the Year Awards, we are proud to be part of the canon of west coast design. We are a vibrant art-design studio creating exclusive functional art pieces, using locally sourced materials that are inspired by the organic forms of nature.

quakestudio.com

T c

r

R. Miller Design Inc.

MGA | MICHAEL GREEN ARCHITECTURE

ONE SEED Architecture + Interiors

R. Miller Design Inc. is a Vancouver-area Art Studio and Interior Design Firm that offers original artwork and residential design services.

Rachael Miller takes her skills to a new level by creating inviting interiors that heighten her passion, all while advocating for mental health. Having been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Rachael Miller hopes to further raise awareness by donating 10% of her art profits to OCD Canada. Through her art and interior design she hopes to reach out to all those in need, creating inspiring interiors that uplift those in its inviting presence.

MGA is one of the most internationally recognized architecture firms in Canada.

Beyond the RAIC Firm of the Year award, Architizer’s Best in North America Firm award, and four Governor General’s Medals, we are known for our innovation in sustainable architecture and advanced wood construction. Our firm’s mission is the pursuit of meaningful impact that improves the lives of our clients and communities, as well as the health of our planet.

ONE SEED Architecture + Interiors is an award-winning studio renowned for creating modern and sustainable homes, including eight Passive Houses. Named a Designer of the Year by WL in 2020 for evocative interiors that blur the line between in and out, their bold designs embrace the spirit of the West Coast, and are executed with technical rigor and attention to detail. And they have a lot of fun doing it!

rmillerdesign.org

mg-architecture.ca

oneseed.ca

WESTERN CANADA’S TOP DESIGNERS AND ARCHITECTS

Scandinavia Wolf Designs

paullavoie

2020’s Makers of the Year, Kristy and Jeff Turney utilize what nature has to offer when creating their unique home decor and jewelry.

The hygge and wabi sabi aesthetic can be found throughout their designs and in their Squamish boutique.

paullavoie provides a full range of interior design services to homes and businesses.

Our goal is to help you envision, enhance, or put the final touch on nearly any design project.

They are known for creating functional designs and jewelry with materials like wood, clay, metal and gemstones.

We will work with you to identify goals, define your personal style, and implement a completed design. Whether your project is as extensive as a new home or you want to update a room, paullavoie can tailor a design to your needs.

Boutique: #3-1861 Mamquam Rd Squamish, BC

We are available for residential or commercial consultations, offering a full scope of services in Canada.

scandinaviawolf.com

paullavoie.com

jwt Architecture Elevating the design community since 2016.

Our work has been acclaimed for its sensibility to sustainability and has been widely published. JWT has consistently been winning regional, provincial and international awards including being named Western Living’s Eco Designer of the Year (2015) and the BC Wood Council’s Architect of the Year in 2019.

jwtarchitecture.com

7/6/21 10:26 AM

WHEN

#25

MR. CHRISTMAS OPENED HIS DOORS

B

ack in August 2015, a photo crew piled into proud Burnabarian Michael Bublé’s home with evergreens, packages tied up with string and plenty of warm-weather clothing to style up Christmas’s favourite crooner for our holiday issue. We’d had access to his house a little earlier, so by the time he opened the door to his own home, it had been transformed into a winter wonderland—during a summer heatwave. True to form, he burst into “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” and was the easygoing West Coaster you’d hoped he’d be. And now, like clockwork every December, “Home for the Holidays with Michael Bublé” is our most-read story on westernliving.ca. Everyone wants to know how their favourite carol singer celebrates the season, too.

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Janis Nicolay

50 YEARS OF

50 YEARS OF

#26 JEWELLER WITH A PASSION FOR

FLW K

arl Stittgen was nearly 40 years into his career as a successful jewellery designer when he decided to take on an altogether different kind of project in 1991: a home on Pender Island that was a tribute to his architectural hero, Frank Lloyd Wright. Ever since the day Stittgen was spellbound by a 1959 issue of House Beautiful that featured the architect’s work, he became a disciple, he says. He named the Pender project Halcyon Days, and it wasn’t so much on a hill as in it—and immaculate in its details, writer Bruce Grierson notes. Like the architect, Stittgen worked with bolts and screws to bind the wood instead of using nails; low ceilings bring the living space down to human scale; maple wall panelling was water-stained to the precise colour of the arbutus trees outside. “Halcyon Days is so redolent of Wright,” wrote Grierson, “you half expect the old man to emerge from the bathroom, in that Buster Keaton-ish flat hat, asking when dinner will be ready.”

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Jewellery designer Karl Stittgen designed his “Halcyon Days” home with incredible attention to detail. All of the woodwork is maple, stained to the colour of the arbutus trees outside. The tiles on the library wall (above) are actually textured gold wallpaper, mimicking the look of tile. The floor in the study (left) is a mix of aggregate, slate and beach rocks that Stittgen’s partner, Noriko, gathered and laid by hand. A large cast-iron bell hangs in the entrance to the home (below left), and gridlike window grilles, another classic FLW nod, are featured throughout (below right.)

Martin Tessler/Western Living December 2000

A

Harrison Hot Springs in the Harrison River Valley is the perfect “road trip” dessnason. A 90-minute drive from Vancouver on Scenic Highway 7, it is just far enough away from home that you feel like you have escaped the confines of the city but not so far that you are numb from hours on the road. With no ferries and no borders there is nothing to get in the way of a fun filled day on the beach, water, or town. Away from urban cityscapes you can relax, enjoy, and breathe in wild. Take in the boundless vistas of the mountains, rivers, lakes, and streams that make the Harrison River Valley so special.

In addison to its world-famous hot springs, Harrison Hot Springs offers top quality accommodasons, great eateries, and a wide variety of outdoor acsvises- especially in the summer. The summer it is the sme for the perfect family getaway- with an incredible sandy beach, prissne lake, and our top aaracson, the Harrison Watersports Waterpark. Harrison’s own version of the “wipe out zone” offers hours of fun for the ensre family. Looking to breathe in the wild and take in our nature? Take a guided kayak tour or rent a kayak, bumper boat, or one of the BBQ boats. Boat tours are also available to nearby Rainbow Falls or wildlife viewing down the prissne Harrison River.

Whether you’re looking to hike, bike, paddle, stalk the Sasquatch or just soak in the healing Wh hot springs you can find your adventure… just up the road in Harrison Hot Springs.

For more informason go to www.tourismharrison.com

50 YEARS OF 1983

2021

Our feature on children’s bedrooms in January 1983 also highlighted this fur baby.

When dogs outnumber people, design ultimately favours the four-legged, as in this stunning Vancouver home with a dedicated dog shower

by Falken Reynolds.

Call Fido

Scrub a Dub

#27 WE’RE A

DOG’S

BEST FRIEND 2018

Floor Plan Ritchie Construction ensured the open-concept layout of this Scandinavian-industrial townhome in North Vancouver left plenty of room for Gus to lounge.

2001

Cover Material Family dog Henley’s regal pose in this Calgary home earned him a spot on our cover.

2016

New Tricks The couple who own this modern Calgary home actually discovered their architect, Rachael Gray, while walking their dog— thanks, Rover.

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1983: John Sherlock; 2021: Ema Peter; 2001: Peter Leon; 2018: Janis Nicolay; 2016: Martin Tessler

Dogs have always had a special place in our hearts, but they also have a special place in our homes.

westernliving.ca

CF.indd

885 WEST GEORGIA

CF FITNESS CENTRE As part of our ongoing commitment to improve and enhance our buildings, Cadillac Fairview is pleased to announce the completion of our new CF Fitness Centre. Whether our tenants are coming in for a workout, or biking to the office, we have available lockers and shower facilities at their disposal. Here you will find top of the line fitness equipment including treadmills, weight lifting machines, yoga studio, Peloton bikes and much more.

Lou Ficcoelli Vice President, Leasing 604.630.5307 lou.ficcoelli@cadillacfairview.com

CF.indd 1

Carson Pennock Director, Office Leasing 604.630.5305 carson.pennock@cadillacfairview.com

6/10/21 8:47 PM

#28 50 YEARS OF

COTTAGE COUNTRY HAS NOTHING ON US

Even the writing in this ’73 story conjures up the summer vibes: “From the front, the cabin is a delight, almost all sundeck, slung like a hammock between tall cedars.”

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Jack Bryan/Western Living June/July 1973

O

ntario, you can keep Muskoka.

We’re happy with our own take on cottage country: the heavenon-earth that is a West Coast cabin.

This wood-on-wood-on-wood Bowen Island retreat (featured in our July/August 1973 issue) by Vancouver firm Henriquez and Todd (see “Design Is in Our DNA,” #19) is an early example of an obsession for laid-back, rustic-modern cool, but as we’ve been celebrating this quintessential sort of space decade after decade in the magazine, it’s clear that one thing never changes: it’s not summer till we’ve made the trek to a little cabin in the woods.

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50 YEARS OF

#29

MARTHA STURDY’S ENVIABLE STYLE

T

he polyglot that is Martha Sturdy is definitely in the running for most consistent presence in WL over the years. There she is in March 1984 as a model, rocking her own soonto-be-ubiquitous oversized jewellery. And then, ten years later, there’s a page of her on-point experiments in resin. Then, another seven years later, her furniture design is front and centre, and countless times in between too numerous to mention. But one of our fave stories was the feature on her homestead in Pemberton (before anyone thought Pemberton was a thing) written by our own beloved editor Bruce Grierson.

It’s a snapshot of an artist at rest, sporting both real work boots and an eternally chic bob, and it spawned a generation of sophisticated citygoers dreaming about chucking it all to retreat to a rural idyll. Martha, you’ve single-handedly raised our collective style IQs.

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Martha Sturdy portrait: Raeff Miles; steel table: David Fierro/Western Living March 2000; home: Jane Weitzel/Western Living October 1995

A steel table from Martha Sturdy’s furniture line serves as a perfect platform from a March 2000 fashion shoot (right); the effortlessly cool Sturdy in workboots at her Pemberton farm in October 1995 (right); and the style icon today (below).

50 YEARS OF

#30 OUR

FURNITURE DESIGNERS BRING THE OUTSIDE IN

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Gutter Credit

Y

es, yes, making furniture out of wood is nothing new. (“Have you heard of chairs?” you’re probably screaming at us right now.)

But hear us out: there’s something uniquely West Coast about the celebration of this material in all its raw, rugged glory—and there’s no one who does it better than Brent Comber.

His now-iconic Alder bench took wood that would have once been considered trash—smaller alder trees—and intricately pieced them together in a design reminiscent of the forest itself. Comber is an artist and designer, and also a scavenger, up­cycling wood sourced from the community. From the humble T-Cup side table to the sleek, organic Chelsea stool to the invitingly hefty fir Soma table, each work puts the wood itself—alder, but also Douglas fir and Western red cedar—front and centre.

BEST Recipes From Four Decades WESTERNLIVING.CA DECEMBER 2011

PM 40064924

SPECIAL

my first time 40

TH

ANNIVERSARY

ISSUE “I’m not sure when WL first featured a PEOPLE PLACES piece of mine, but I & THINGS kept the 40th issue as it had the Alder Cube on the cover.

It also featured my Drum in the #2 spot, which was fun as Doug [Coupland] was #19 and Omer [Arbel] was #11. I made sure they were aware of this .”

—Brent Comber, Brent Comber Originals featuring THE 40 MOST IMPORTANT

IN ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN

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Clockwise from top: Brent Comber’s Alder cubes and bench; the Soma dining table; and the T-Cup stool.

MORE WEST COAST

GutterRicci/Western Carlo Credit Living Sept 2014

FURNITURE DESIGNERS

Barter Design

The charred pieces from this Sunshine Coast studio highlight the beauty of the local timber.

MTHwoodworks

Michael Thomas Host pairs offcuts and found stumps with poured resin to create pieces that blur the line between rustic and modern.

westernliving.ca / s u m m e r

2021

105

TOONTOWN WORLD

“My feature in WL probably set the course for the rest of my career as an interior designer.

I always felt like an underdog because I immigrated to Canada later in my life, so I didn’t have the same opportunities and networks as someone who grew up and went to school here.

Getting featured in WL gave me the much-needed confidence—you actually changed my life back then, so thank you!”—Negar Reihani, Space Harmony Homes & Design // bathrooms

Take advantage of natural light. When the homeowner was renovating the upper level of her home, designer Negar Reihani of Space Harmony suggested she position the ensuite shower under the skylight, creating a rare opportunity to bathe in natural light.

Clad in natural stone, the simple space doesn’t need many bells and whistles to shine: a wraparound bench, a gorgeous sunny day, and it’s a room made for luxuriating in.

68 | W e s t e r n l i v i n g . c a

“

If you look in the dictionary, under which entry would we find you?” we asked furniture designer Judson Beaumont in our Summer 1999 issue (seen right). “Wacky,” he responded. As anyone who’s toured 1000 Parker Street in Vancouver knows, the first time you stumbled into Beaumont’s studio, Straight Line Designs, was a trip. The name itself was the cheeky antithesis of Judson’s designs—his furniture was all glorious curves, all how-the-hell-did-he-make-thatby-hand playfulness: cartoon-like chests of drawers, the grandfather clock that’s more grandfather than clock, the coffee table that appears to lift one of its legs to piddle on the carpet (below right). The designer, who passed away at the all-too-young age of 59 in February 2020, created a dreamscape of designs that delighted kids and adults alike. “My rule is: if you can draw and design it, you can build it,” he said on the Straight Lines website. “I love it when someone tells me, ‘You cannot build that’ or ‘No one would want that.’ These words only encourage me more.”

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m aY 2 0 15

“Our first loft interior made the Winter 1999 cover! We were beyond thrilled. Rick Staehling did the art direction on this and then hired us to do his Mayne Island house shortly after.

If you knew of Rick’s unerring and sophisticated sensibility, you know what a compliment this was for two young designers just starting out. That project subsequently won us our first Canadian Architect award a few years later.”

—David Battersby and Heather Howat, BattersbyHowat Architects

Use one material throughout for a statement-making design. Designer Karin Bohn of Moeski Design Agency loves the look of marble in a bathroom—and even more so when it’s everywhere. The white and bright material covers the floors, the walls and the lining of the shower (with smaller mosaic tile on the floor to provide grip and the right angle for drainage).

Framed mirrors offer just enough visual break and serve to warm up the cool marble, too.

This page: Colin Perry Opposite, top: Amada Oster | Provoke Studios; bottom: Janis Nicolay

#31

JUDSON BEAUMONT’S

my first time

Clad in natural stone, the simple space doesn’t need many bells and whistles to shine: a wraparound bench, a gorgeous sunny day, and it’s a room made for luxuriating in.

Disguise the shower drain and you’ll get a more comfortable floor. You’ll have to look closely to spot the drain in this South Pender Island bathroom, designed

by Tanja Hinder and Carrie McCarthy of Marrimor: it’s just two thin lines running along the floor. But the simple concept pays off: the floor of the steam shower is comfortable underfoot, perfect to spend as much time as you’d like in there.

Se See SourceS

Judson Beaumont: Robert Kenney/Western Living Summer 1999

50 YEARS OF

W e s t e r n l i v i n g . c a m aY

50 YEARS OF

#32

HOTHOUSE VS PURE DESIGN W

hat are the odds that early-1990s Edmonton would birth not one but two acclaimed design collectives that achieved a meteoric rise to international prominence and have seen their work shipped from Alberta’s capital to all corners of the globe? Well, given the incubator that was the U of A’s Department of Art and Design, those odds were pretty high, actually. But that doesn’t account for the energy and ambition that was married to the talent: Pure collaborated with Karim Rashid and former WL editor Douglas Coupland, while Hothouse opened their own downtown retail spot, with the designers selling the CD holders and wine racks that they themselves had created. And thanks to Edmonton’s collaborative arts scene, it was never a Stones/Beatles, Tupac/Biggie situation—both operations supported each other and helped cement the city’s reputation as a creative capital to be reckoned with.

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Pure Designʼs Momo bench (top) was designed by Kyoko Inoda and Nils Sveje in 2002. Hothouse Designʼs Otter CD holder (below) used a metal ball and gravitational pull to hold CDs in place.

Pure Design: Bluefish Studios/Western Living September 2003; Hothouse: Western Living October 1996

COLLECTIVE SOUL:

Elegant Heritage Conversions On Vancouver’s Westside

Heritage Reawakens in Kerrisdale

Across from the lush Arbutus Greenway in Kerrisdale, the legendary Twiss property will be transformed into ten elegant homes. The Craftsman-style architecture of the historic residence is to be restored and the interiors include thoughtful millwork, nooks and pantries, wallpaper and shiplap, and high-end Jenn-Air or Wolf appliances.

Launching This Summer

A Tribute to Jericho Character

A Unique Home Series Created By

A Craftsman-style character residence will be revitalized and converted into a duplex, and joined by two complementary buildings to create a collection of six character homes only steps from Jericho Beach. These two-bedroom plus den and three-bedroom homes will feature water and mountain views, and include an optional elevator upgrade, perfect for ageing in place.

Enquire For Details At

778.729.0898 HeritageByFormwerks.com

Launching This Summer Illustrations and renderings reflect the artist’s interpretation of the project. The developer CHC W 4th Development LP and FB West Boulevard Development LP reserves the right to modify or change plans, specifications, and features without notice. This is not an offering for sale. Any such offerings can only be made with a Disclosure Statement. E.&.O.E.

50 YEARS OF

#33

THE DESIGN GENIUS OF

L

ike most of the design industry, we’ve been fans of Omer Arbel’s process-driven work for a very long time. We featured his 2.4 chair— designed two years before his 14.0 Bocci lights became the new modernist standard for pendant lighting, materializing anywhere a space needed a hit of glassy drama—back in 2003. The 2.4 chair speaks to Arbel’s architectural background (he was an intern architect at Busby and Associates at the time, and helped design the new Inform Interiors store): tension forces are transferred through the stainless-steel skeleton; compression forces are transferred through the cast-resin shape. It was a limited edition run of six chairs, each cast sequentially in layers on their side. It was the chair that got him into Elle Decor and Dwell—and WL, of course. The following month, he shared in a letter to the editor: “I’ve wanted to be in Western Living since I was a kid!”

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Portrait: Fahim Kassam; 2.4 Chair: Shannon Loewen

OMER ARBEL

westernliving.ca

StittgenF

P ink sapp hire and diamond in terchangeable earrings

1457 Bellevue Avenue, West Vancouver | 604.925.8333 | STITTGEN.COM

StittgenFineJewellry_FP_WL.indd 1

6/3/21 3:42 PM

50 YEARS OF

#34 ALL IN THE

G

Propellor Design principal Nik Rust’s family home (left) was designed by his dad, architect Paul Rust, and featured in our November 1974 issue.

Architect Patrick Warren of Frits de Vries Architects also had his family home in the magazine (below), in January 1980; it was designed by architect Donald McPherson.

iven that Western Living has inspired generations of readers to design their dream home, is it any surprise that some of our favourite designers would have been similarly inspired by the magazine—albeit from the other side of that dream-home equation?

Propellor Design’s Nik Rust saw his family home featured back in 1974. “The house I spent my early years in was designed by my dad, and was featured in the November 1974 issue of Western Living. It was a truly beautiful and thoughtfully designed little home and a real standout in an otherwise conventional ’50s/’60sera suburban neighbourhood. For some time, I’d entertained the fantasy of either talking the owner into letting my dad and Propellor collaborate on a restoration and update, or even buying it back for this purpose.”

For architect Patrick Warren of Frits de Vries Architects, a profile of his family in a 1980 issue of WL is one he keeps near and dear. “I keep a copy of the January 1980 issue of Western Living, which featured my childhood home, at my office desk,” he says. “This is the house that inspired me to become an architect.”

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Rust House: Jack Bryan/Western Living November 1974; Warren House: Jack Bryan/Western Living January 1980

FAMILY

50 YEARS OF

#35 WE’RE INTO

ART

The Royal Art Lodge may not have invented quirk in fine art, but they definitely perfected it.

They created creatures and manufactured dreamscapes that are still instantly recognizable at a glance.

If

you look at the walls of the homes we’ve featured, it seems like we’ve shown more Shadbolts than the VAG and more de Grandmaisons than the Glenbow. But we also like to place the artists themselves front and centre, like our July 1981 issue featuring Toni Onley and his on-point West Coast Modern home, or when our longtime Winnipeg city editor, Alison Gillmor, introduced us to the quirks of the then upand-coming Royal Art Lodge in a September 2000 profile.

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When we profiled Toni Onley in July 1981 (above), he was one of the most commercially successful artists in Canada—which enabled him to have this on-point West Coast Modern house, where we photographed Onley and his partner, Yukiko (left).

Royal Art Lodge portrait: Gerry Kopelow/Western Living October 2000; Onley photos: Iwao Matsuo/Western Living July 1981

When we profiled the Royal Art Lodge—clockwise from top, left: Marcel Dzama, Neil Farber, Drue Langlois, Myles Langlois, Hollie Dzama and Michael Dumontier—in September 2000, the Winnipeg artists were already the toast of the Canadian art scene, but in the following years their reach would become international and become the hottest Canadian export since SCTV.

50 YEARS OF

WE (UNOFFICIALLY) DECLARED THE 2010s THE DECADE OF THE

MOOOI RANDOM LIGHT

#36

In 2016, it was the centrepiece of a charming kids room, designed by The Cross...

T

And in 2019, Nigel Parish of Splyce Design incorporated the black version of the Random light into this West Vancouver renovation.

here’s something about the Random light that Western Canadian designers can’t get enough of... but we don’t blame them. The playful piece from Dutch design firm Moooi has seemed perfectly at home in dozens of different projects over the years.

In 2013, we spotted it in this Heffel Balagno Whistler cabin...

Room8: Martin Tessler; Heffel Balagno: Kristen McGaughey; The Cross: Janis Nicolay; Splyce: Sama Jim Canzian

In 2012, it hung above a striking Room8-designed kitchen in Kelowna...

the goods inspiration 1

1 I never leave the house without my GUCCI BAG.

2 I picked up these

cheery chartreuse IKAT BOWLS from Anthropologie.

3 My signature

scent? INCENSE KYOTO by COMME DES GARÇONS.

2

4 I love the SAARINEN TULIP TABLE.

5

This PYRRHA NECKLACE was given to me by my partner.

3

my first time

2021 /

westernliving.ca

i love 10things

Calgary design celeb ALYKHAN VELJI first came to our attention when he won a place on the first season of HGTV’s The Style Department. Today, Velji appears on CityTV’s Breakfast Television and Cityline when not managing his eponymous interiors firm, which he founded in 2004. Velji’s smart new rug line, Afera, was released in 2009, garnering him a nomination for this magazine’s Designers of the Year awards. We caught up with him while he was making arrangements to expand into Vancouver. alyveljidesigns.com

7 A BLAZER is a must when I’m travelling.

8 The natural beauty of this PEACOCK FEATHER inspires me.

9

This PIECE OF CORAL grounds my nightstand.

10 I dipped my

5

VINTAGE OVAL BAR CART in chrome. So glam!

9 6

8

7

COLIN WAY

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“My first time in the magazine (Jan/Feb 2012), the photo was taken at my home, along with a feature of some of the things I love. Looking back, some are the same and then some are not! How things change.”—Aly Velji, Alykhan Velji Designs

6

I use my STOVETOP MODERN ITALIA ESPRESSO MAKER every morning.

4

westernliving . ca january / february 2012

15

PUT THE OFFICE ON MUTE. The soundproof, space-saving, budget-friendly workspace solution for offices.

Quiet spaces to concentrate, meet and be productive.

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A BC company with a world-class solution.

Inbox ad | Western Living June 7 20201

#37 50 YEARS OF

WALLPAPER IS ALWAYS IN. ALWAYS.

In the May 2000 issue (above), we applauded a new wallpaper design inspired by a pattern found at Burnaby Village Museum.

Things get cozy in a William Switzer-designed dining room (top right), featured in June 1987. And in April 2015, Victoria designer Kyla Bidgood goes bold with a beautiful-in-blue entryway (right).

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Switzer dining room: Roger Brooks; Burnaby museum wallpaper: Martin Tessler; Kyla Bidgood entryway: Jen Steele

The design detail that seems to get rediscovered every decade.

50 YEARS OF

WOOD #38 PANELLING

Rust House: Jack Bryan/Western Living November 1974; DPO dining room: Grant Harder

...SO IS

, AS IT TURNS OUT Wood you dare to disagree?

Nik Rust of Propellor Studio grew up in this cedar-panelled home designed by his father (left), featured in our November 1974 issue (see #34!). DPO Architecture puts a modern spin on the look (right), with a nook wrapped in cross-laminated timber, seen in our September 2020 edition.

#39

REMEMBER THE TIME WE WENT TO

TREVOR LINDEN’S T

urns out, he likes wood panelling too, if this 2012 story about his Evoke-designed Whistler townhouse is any indication.

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Captain Canuck’s chalet features an E-15 dining table ringed with 10 poppy Eames chairs, whose wood dowel legs play off the stairwell’s white-oak walls.

Janis Nicolay

HOUSE?

50 YEARS OF

Compared to the original 1976 Spiral House (below), the 2018 update (right) is lighter and brighter: a simple palette of slate and white walls lets the fir ceiling do all the talking. A central floating staircase leads up to an “eagle’s nest” art studio—and front row seats to the idyllic Howe Sound landscape.

#40

A

SPIRALLING HOME, TIMES TWO

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Jack Bryan/Western Living November 1976; Tracey Ayton/Western Living October 2018

A

place so nice, it was featured twice. The Spiral House, designed by architect Rol Fieldwalker, first appeared in Western Living in November 1976. At the time, we described the West Vancouver home’s circular design as “like a whelk shell or chambered nautilus”—which is 1970s code for “looks like a snail, in the best way.” You get a 180-degree view of Howe Sound, a 180-degree view of the woods and a magnificent spiral that technically has no rooms: it’s just one long, spinning space with zigzag windows. The separate living areas were loosely defined. There was no electricity and no driveway. It was free-flowing, beautiful chaos.

But when Barbara and George Maryniak purchased the home in 2005, it was literally sliding off the cliffside it was built on. The couple reached out to the original architect, and Fieldwalker took on the property for a second time, building an all-new home and using part of the old foundation for a swimming pool. Spiral House II was featured in WL in 2018. It includes more of the 21st-century amenities we’re used to (for example, electricity and walls) but still maintains the fun: the roof is an exposed, labyrinth-like puzzle of Douglas fir beams. And, of course, that gorgeous view remains.

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50 YEARS OF

#41

WE’VE ALWAYS EMBRACED STAYING AT

HOME

O

kay, not really. But while flipping through our archives, we did find a surprising number of stories that were pandemic-friendly. It was a striking reminder that, for us, home has always been important—even when we weren’t forced to stay in.

For example, there’s “50 Reasons to Stay Home This Summer” by Jim Sutherland in our May 1992 issue, including “fresh corn, straight from the field” in every province, feeling the earth shake at Skookumchuck Narrows on the Sunshine Coast, the 200-plus flavours at (the still churning) MacKay’s Ice Cream just north of Calgary, and—weirdly—watching kangaroo rats scamper around in Osoyoos.

There’s the June 2001 feature on the best picnic-proof recipes (Roasted Fingerling Potato Salad, Smoked Chicken Salad Sandwiches and Grilled Mediterranean Vegetable Wraps made the list) and the roundup of local celebs championing their favourite Western destinations in the same issue (Rick Hansen was spreading rumours about Gossip Island, B.C.).

And in April 2000, our “Second Base” feature gave great advice on working from home—now a first base for many. While some are dated (“Get a Laptop”) most of the tips ring very true today.

Among them: change out of your pajamas, work close to a window and avoid your spouse.

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Corn and Skookumchuck Narrows: iStock; Grilled Veggie Wrap: Anna Pustynnikova; ice cream: AJ Wattamaniuk; couple: Chris Haylett/Western Living June 2001

When we recommended “50 Reasons to Stay Home...” in May 1992, we suggested local fave Skookumchuck Narrows (this photo), as well as corn in every province (left). And we’re all about picnics in June 2001—wraps and ice cream, of course (middle left)—along with some very stylish roadtripping (bottom).

50 YEARS OF

In this September 2000 photo shoot (right), saturated, tiled backdrops were made possible with then-new photo composite technology.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF WESTERN LIVING

FASHION w

e tend not to cover much fashion these days in the magazine (save for our celebration of the West’s most talented fashion minds in our annual Designers of the Year awards), but that hasn’t always been the case. Throughout the years, the magazine has dabbled in sartorial coverage—and while the looks may not all have aged well, the timeless creativity of the art team still shines through.

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In April 1984 (left), life was a khaki dream. Wide belts, bracelets and baubles represented the best of ’80s excess in our January 1987 issue (below).

Top: Chris Haylett/Gamma Pro Lab/Western Living September 2000; middle: Howard Fry/Western Living April 1984; bottom: Tim Harvey/Western Living January 1987

#42

Y

Top: Chris Haylett/Gamma Pro Lab/Western Living September 2000; middle: Howard Fry/Western Living April 1984; bottom: Tim Harvey/Western Living January 1987

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50 YEARS OF

#43 JUNE 1984

Paella by the Pool

Paella: Derik Murray/Western Living June 1984; Mano Henedy: Jack Bryan/Western Living August 1974

Just something nice and light to accompany your dip: sangria, gazpacho, paella a la Valenciana, crema catalana.

AUGUST 1974

Dinner with Mano “Mano Henedy is a Hungarian dress designer.”

WE’VE THROWN SOME EPIC

DINNER PARTIES

From “The Thursday Night Feast” (February 1978) to “Paella by the Pool” (June 1984), Western Living recipes have always aimed to serve up a good time. westernliving.ca / s u m m e r

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DECEMBER 1973

For Christmas Cheer It just isn’t the holidays without a ham covered in cream!

FEBRUARY 1978

The Thursday Night Feast Literally 20 Indonesian dishes. The table was loaded.

from the archives:

NOMINEES FOR WORST DISH NAME “Raisin Sauce” “Casserole for Ten” “Sour Cream Noodles” “Ham Fingers” “Fluffy Hard Sauce” 132 summer

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MARCH 1987

Fancy Fish

There is shark on this menu. SHARK.

Thursday Night Feast: Western Living February 1978; Christmas Cheer: Western Living December 1973; Fancy Fish: Derik Murray/Western Living March 1987

50 YEARS OF

INTRODUCING THE GRAND TOWER

65 LEVELS OF EXPANDABLE LIVING

CONCORDMETROTOWN.COM

#44

50 YEARS OF

WE HAVE THE BEST

HOME COOKS AROUND

w

David Wei’s Salmon Barbecue Sauce ⅔ cup Miracle Whip salad dressing, or other variety ⅓ cup melted butter 1 heaping tbsp liquid honey 1 tbsp white vinegar Salt and pepper to taste ½ tsp chopped dill Squeeze of fresh lemon juice Mix ingredients until smooth. Brush sauce on both sides of salmon fillet or steak, and grill one side about six inches from the coals until sauce browns. Turn fish over. Coat top with a little more sauce, and cook fish until sauce on top glazes over.

Serve more sauce alongside at the table

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David Wei: Raeff Miles/Western Living August 1982; salmon: Lauri Patterson

hile rooting through old issues of Western Living we found plenty of columns worth reviving in print (our Letters to the Editor was not one of them—turns out mean comments have been a thing long before the internet). One of our favourites is the recipe contest. We challenged home cooks across the West to send us their best recipes, and printed the winners. Here’s a 1982 classic for your next barbecue.

50 YEARS OF

#45

AS MUCH AS WE LOVE MODERN COOKING...

WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE A SOFT SPOT FOR

B

est of Bridge is a Western Canadian classic: a collection that started as a handbound book of recipes from a group of bridge-playing Calgary pals back in 1975 and has evolved into one of the West’s bestselling cookbook brands. So when we posted the Classy Chicken recipe up online a few years back in an off-handed post about comfort food, should we really have been surprised that it became one of our most-viewed recipes ever? If you haven’t had the pleasure of cooking with cans of soup, consider this your introduction. Classy? We’re not convinced. Comforting, creamy and weirdly satisfying? Absolutely.

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Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces and sprinkle with pepper. Sauté quickly in oil over medium heat just until opaque (don’t overcook—the chicken will get tough!). Drain. Cook asparagus or broccoli until crunchy. Drain and arrange in bottom of buttered casserole. Place chicken on top. Mix together soup, mayonnaise, curry and lemon juice and pour over chicken. Sprinkle with cheddar cheese and bake, uncovered, at 350°F for 30 to 35 minutes. Serves 6.

Recipe courtesy of Best of Bridge – as seen in The Best of the Best and More and The Complete Best of Bridge Cookbooks Volume 2.

Reprinted with permission.

Available where books are sold.

Classy Chicken photo: Ann Zhuravleva/iStock

CLASSY CHICKEN

3 chicken breasts, skinned and boned ¼ tsp pepper 3 tbsp oil 280 g pkg. frozen asparagus or broccoli (fresh is even better) 284 ml can cream of chicken soup ½ cup light mayonnaise 1 tsp curry powder 1 tsp lemon juice ½ to 1 cup grated cheddar cheese

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50 YEARS OF

OUR

CHEFS #46 ARE TRUE TO THEIR I

#47

Chef Nagata’s al fresco dinner in Stanley Park, circa 1996—with some help from his son Brendan, of course.

The menu includes chicken yakitori and somen noodles.

A symbol of the new Okanagan, from our June 2018 issue: the Tom Kundig–designed Martin’s Lane winery, Anthony von Mandl’s state-of-theart temple to pinot noir and riesling.

GROWING STEP BY STEP WITH

B.C. WINE

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Find the recipe for Chicken Yakitori with Teriyaki Sauce at westernliving.ca

W

ine has always been part of WL, from the earliest days. Back then, the options for the Western Canadian consumers were... sparse, but our esteemed columnists—David Rodger and then Sid Cross—made sure our readers knew the difference between brunello and beaujolais.

But one of the most rewarding aspects was their chronicling of the then-burgeoning wine scene in the Okanagan by highlighting pioneers like Calona, Gray Monk and Gehringer Brothers, to name a few. Those trailblazers made room for a few more— Mission Hill, Sumac Ridge—and soon we were there waving the banner as the little wine region that could started to make a splash on the international scene. Today, the industry continues to grow and international accolades are the norm, not the exception, and as we look forward to the next five decades, we can’t think of a region we’re more bullish on.

Martin’s Lane Winery/Western Living June 2018

n this 1996 feature, called “A Japanese Picnic,” chef Daryle Ryo Nagata says he grew up eating his grandma’s cooking: “Japanese versions of western things.” It’s a menu that rings true for many children and grandchildren of immigrants. Reinvention and international influence not only makes food good—it makes it fun. After going through Chef Nagata’s accolades (the Savoy in London, La Reserve in Geneva, the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa), this story focuses on the recipes he crafted for WL: you guessed it, a Japanese picnic. The delicious but low-key lunch that follows was made for sitting in the grass in Vancouver’s Stanley Park with family—starting new traditions that blend with the old, and making food that grandma would have loved.

John Sinal/Western Living Summer 1996

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#4

50 YEARS OF

DAY ONE

#48 CURTIS GILLESPIE

Aaron Pederson, 3ten photo/Western Living June 2013

GOES CYCLING

One of the great joys of this magazine is when we get to send Western Canada’s greatest writers on travel assignments around the globe to bring the essence of a place back to our readers. One such memorable piece followed Edmonton’s Curtis Gillespie as he trekked to France to attempt to ride a bike up the Alpe d’Huez, the most feared climb of the Tour de France. On the upside, he made it. On the downside, he crashed on the descent, destroying a $10,000 (borrowed) bike in the process. Luckily he was okay and, even luckier, his long piece on the adventure for us—entitled “Crash Course”—garnered a National Magazine Award nomination. Here’s an excerpt from the epic, 4,600-word piece.

The ambulance came shrieking up behind us on the D1091 along the valley floor south of Grenoble, heading towards Rochetaille, the departure point for our cycling ascent of the iconic Tour de France stage at Alpe d’Huez.

We pulled to the side as much as the narrow road would allow, and the ambulance howled past.

“If that ambulance is heading to Alpe d’Huez,” I said to Rich, “maybe it should stay there. We might need it later.”

We laughed... but probably shouldn’t have.

An hour later, everything seemed right with the world.

We’d parked at a roadside turnout near Rochetaille, done a quick up and down a nearby hill, and were now cycling towards the base of Alpe d’Huez. It was a measured and entirely tolerable 20-kilometre warmup, and I said as much to Rich.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” he said.

Alpe d’Huez is one of most celebrated climbs in the Alps, partly due to being a regular on the Tour rota, partly because if it’s not the hardest climb it’s still hellishly difficult, partly due to the sheer relentlessness of the slope, and partly due to the ridiculously picturesque nature of its twisting, winding curves. It’s an elemental climb, packed with drama and beauty and suffering.

Did I mention the suffering? Ten minutes after we’d started going uphill, I was locked in an internal existential debate on the precise nature of pain. We were still on the first slope. I’d been doing close to 50 km/h as we hit the base, but 200 metres up the slope it was as if a parachute had opened behind me. I was now doing under 10 km/h. And was struggling. Badly. We’d yet to hit the first of the 21 famous hairpins, and I knew, with sudden clarity, that there was no way I was going to make it up that mountain if this kept up. I pegged the incline at about 30 percent; Rich told me later it was 10 percent.

As I valiantly tried to keep the pedals turning over, my mind flooded with questions: What is my limit? How much harder can I push? Why am I doing this? Will I be able to live with myself if I quit? At the first hairpin, Rich was circling, waiting for me. He’d yet to break a sweat.

“One down,” he said. “Twenty to go.”

Another question arrived: Would anyone miss Rich if I pushed him over the edge of the cliff?

Before I could work out the logistics of the crime, he’d taken off towards Hairpin #2. I followed. We had one goal, or at least I had one goal—now that we were on the hill, I wanted to make it to the summit without stopping.

By Hairpin #7, I was feeling less panicky about the whole enterprise, possibly due to oxygen deprivation. We’d been riding for just under 40 minutes. This is doable, I thought.

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SIDEWINDER The cycling route on the Alpe

50 YEARS OF

I might just be able to make it up this mountain. Rich asked me how I was doing.

“Not bad,” I huffed back. “Hey, what’s the record for climbing Alpe d’Huez, anyway? How fast do the pros do it?”

“Not sure, exactly,” he said. “I think around 40 minutes.”

I put my head down. Just keep turning the pedals. Just keep turning the pedals.

Five hairpins later we cleared the treeline and the world suddenly seemed to open out beneath us. The valley floor was now so far below us I found it impossible to believe we’d gotten this far under our own power. Another half an hour on, we hit the final hairpin. Fifteen minutes later, we found the post signifying the high point of the official Tour de France stage. We stopped, took a picture, filled our lungs, and turned down. After stopping for a bite in one of the quaint cafés in the town, we hit the hairpins to let gravity do its work.

It’s here that we must talk about what they don’t tell you in the guide books and on the websites and in the travelogues (at least the ones I read, which were clearly the wrong ones). They tell you that cycling in the Alps is stunning for the scenery.

(True.) They tell you that French drivers respect cyclists and share the road. (True.) They tell you that you can stop in any village and get a perfect latte. (True.) They tell you that it’s difficult to fully prepare for the suffering and pain you’ll need to endure to make it to the top. (True.) And they all tell you, in rapturous tones, that at the top you will be suffused with satisfaction, bathed in endorphins, glistening with the honeyed sweat of your own satisfied effort. (True.)

But they don’t tell you much about going back down. They don’t tell you that it’s easy to let the brain switch off ever so slightly and that it would only be normal to let your guard down. And why would you do this? Because you have achieved your mission, have you not? Your goal was to make it “up” the mountain. The massive strain and effort and heart pounding in your ears and quads on fire and the thoughts of quitting, all that happened going up. And then you got to the top, and it all went away, so surely that must mean the mission has been accomplished. Right?

Wrong.

I only had to freewheel for mere seconds on the descent to accelerate to 60 km/h. We were swooshing, flying, screaming down the hill, and it was exhilarating and terrifying in equal measures. After successfully negotiating the trickiest of the hairpins in the middle of the descent, we finally stopped at the side of the road at Hairpin #2, where we had a look both out over the lower valley and back up the mountain.

“You did it,” said Rich, grinning. He looked up the mountain.

“Can you believe we climbed that?”

I smiled. It was true. A feeling of satisfaction flooded through me. “We’ve earned our dinner tonight.” I urged him on. “You first.

And go as fast as you like. I know you’ve been holding back a bit for me. I’ll see you at the bottom.”

He tore off, and after adjusting one of my gloves I followed.

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The road down, between Hairpin #2 and the final Hairpin, #1, was a little more sinuous than the rest, and partly in the shade, now that we were back beneath the treeline. The pavement was slick here and there with spring runoff, and as I let my speed pick up I noticed bits of pebble and scree that had fallen off the mountain onto the road. Rich was already far ahead, hitting speeds close to 70 km/h. Halfway between the two final hairpins, the road veered slightly to the left. I was a touch too close to the inner face of the mountain, near the craggy cliff wall, and so I made a move to drift closer to the centre of the road. As I did so, I feathered the brakes at the exact moment I hit a small scattering of arrowhead rock that had splintered off the mountain face into the shadows. With no warning, my rear wheel skated a few centimetres towards the narrow gutter on the inner side of the road. I tried to compensate with the front wheel, fingered the brakes again, and then felt the front tire wobble hard. I was now suddenly, officially, instantly, deeply in trouble, and still doing about 50 km/h. The back wheel shot out from under me and caught the gutter. The front wheel turned straight sideways. My hands were ripped from the bar. I was in freefall at 40 km/h, but instead of toppling over, hitting the road, and sliding, the gutter pulled the bike, and me (still clipped into my pedals), into the wall of broken rock just 12 inches off the road.

My right leg hit the jagged wall, and then my shoulder hit, too. My bike rammed into me and then cartwheeled over top as my feet were torn out of the clips. A boulder was sticking out the side of the rock face and my face was moving fast towards it; I turned my head just in time so that the boulder crashed against my helmet.

There was a thud, more scraping, I heard what sounded like wheel spokes clattering, and then I came to a stop, splayed out on the road, my legs in the gutter, my torso on the pavement, my head in the middle of the downhill lane.

The whole thing had taken no more than two seconds, from first doing 60 km/h over shale I hadn’t seen when I’d touched my brakes, to the time I came to a stop.

I lay on the road for a few seconds, doing the checklist. Arms, legs, hands, fingers: all moveable. Neck, eyes: working. Then I looked down. The entire right side of my body was shredded.

There was blood all over me and a smear of red on the road behind me. My left hand was torn up. My right leg was a pulpy mess. I decided to stand up, but before I did a thought entered my head: Okay, if I stand up and look down and see my body still on the ground, it means I’m dead. It was a brief and sobering thought.

I stood. I looked down. My body was not on the road... except for the skin and blood I’d surfaced it with. I knew instinctively that I’d just had a major escape. I was alive and could easily have not been.

See rest of the story at westernliving.ca

Edward Juan/Western Living June 2013

d’Huez—a regular in the Tour de France rotation—is famous for 21 hairpin turns: gruelling on the way up, dangerous on the way down, as Gillespie discovered.

50 YEARS OF

#49

my first time “Our first story in WL was a Christmas shoot at our Heather Park project for the November 2014 issue. Of course, it was shot in the middle of summer and we were scrambling to find a Christmas tree. We improvised by putting it on the front porch and shooting the entry to capture it. Luckily, we had made the clients a wreath out of birch bark for the front door the Christmas before!.”—Chad Falkenberg and Kelly Reynolds, Falken Reynolds Interiors

The Martha Stewa worthy decor spring from Decorate Gas each year they brin inventive holiday tr mings to local shop

Merry & Bright Simple Holiday Designer Chad Falkenberg fills a handmade Advent calendar with treats (top left). The home’s cool palette of whites and greys is the perfect backdrop for holiday brights.

58 | W E S T E R N L I V I N G . C A

Furniture designer Kate Duncan celebrates her 2017 win.

Interior designers Robert Bailey and Stephanie Brown in 2017, when Brown won the Ledingham Award.

Designer Jamie Banfield in 2017.

N O V E M B E R 2 0 14

SEE SOURCES

Sweet Spot The kitchen features a pastry chef island: a cool slab of marble that’s perfect for rolling out pie crusts and cookies. But designer Chad Falkenberg brought in a special treat for the homeowners: gingerbread cookies made by his mother and couriered in from Edmonton.

66 | W E S T E R N L I V I N G . C A

N O V E M B E R 2 0 14

E

Green (and White) Christmas “I grew up on a farm,” notes Falkenberg, “and we always had a tree outside with lights—it’s a welcoming thing for your guests.” The Japanese cedar outside the door was sourced from Ryan Levy at Object Outdoors and Erica Enterprises.

60 | W E S T E R N L I V I N G . C A

Designer Paul Lavoie and editorial director Anicka Quin in 2016.

Our 2019 Designers of the Year party, hosted in the Burritt Bros. showroom.

Editor-at-large Stacey McLachlan, designer Andrea Rodman, Taylor Willms of Sol Construction and architect David Battersby of BattersbyHowat in 2019.

WE CAME, WE SAW, WE

PARTIED

Plaid Fox Studio’s Ben Leavitt (right), with partner Vishal Anand.

D

esigners of the Year launched in 2008, and it’s been one terrific party ever since that first night in a show suite for the (never to open, it would turn out) Ritz-Carlton Hotel. We may have underestimated the size of the speakers we’d need for the sound system that first night (who are we kidding—this reunion-style party has always been a raucous gala!), but it was the start of something great. Here’s to being able to crowd into loud spaces together again, and soon!

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Industrial designer Zoë Pawlak celebrates in 2019.

N O V E M B E R 2 0 14

Kelly Reynolds, Marina Hauner and Chad Falkenberg of Falken Reynolds Interiors celebrate with 2019 Interior Designer of the Year David Nicolay of Evoke International Design.

Paul Sangha of Paul Sangha Creative, Javier Campos of Campos Studio, and Nik Rust of Propellor in 2017, when Campos won the architectural design category.

veryon have a no-fuss holiday (this yea December, find our homes cho just as overwhelmed. But desig Reynolds spotted a chance to b invited to decorate this mid-ce Vancouver’s South Cambie ne The duo had recently renova delivering a sweep of clean, mo sional couple who lives here. W those Craftsman bones to spea ready to simplify. The results m this clean and contemporary h In the living room, for exam place (a remainder from the m “Really oppressive,” says Falk was going to crush you.” It was original chair rail, which circl around new millwork, creatin fireplace had always lived ther mounted above is now a touch becoming a focal point.)

Marble surrounds the firepl

Mrs. Falkenberg’s Gingerbread Cookies This gingerbread is an old family recipe, though Chad Falkenberg’s mother, Audrey Falkenberg, no longer uses the margarine called for on her recipe card—thankfully that ’80s “health” craze is over.

The Martha Stewartworthy decor springs from Decorate Gastown— each year they bring inventive holiday trimmings to local shops.

he kitchen features a pastry chef island: a ble that’s perfect for rolling out pie crusts designer Chad Falkenberg brought in a he homeowners: gingerbread cookies her and couriered in from Edmonton.

L I V I NG . CA

*To make sour milk, put 2 tsp vinegar in a measuring cup and top with enough milk to make ¾ cup.

Preheat oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, spices, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a stand mixer or bowl with a hand mixer, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then beat in molasses and vanilla. Alternating with the sour milk, gradually add flour-spice mixture to the wet ingredients until combined.

Gather dough together into a ball, then flatten into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap; chill in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours.

Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Divide dough into three portions, and put two back in the refrigerator. Roll out remaining dough to approximately 1/8-inch thickness, and cut out with shaped cookie cutters of your choice. If desired, place candy buttons on gingerbread before baking (or decorate with icing after they’ve baked and cooled).

Bake cookies until golden (approximately 10 to 13 minutes). Repeat with remaining dough. When cookies have cooled, store in airtight containers between waxed paper.

N O V E M B E R 2 0 14

grew up on a farm,” ad a tree outside with ur guests.” The Japanced from Ryan Levy at s.

E M B E R 2 0 14

4½ cups flour (or slightly less, if you want softer cookies) 2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 2 tsp ginger 1 tsp cinnamon ½ tsp nutmeg ½ tsp salt 2 eggs 1 cup brown sugar 1 cup butter ¾ cup molasses 1 tsp vanilla ¾ cup sour milk* Candy decorations or icing

E

veryone says they’re determined to have a no-fuss holiday (this year, at last) but most of us, by midDecember, find our homes choked with tinsel and our minds just as overwhelmed. But designers Chad Falkenberg and Kelly Reynolds spotted a chance to break that cycle when they were invited to decorate this mid-century Craftsman-style home in Vancouver’s South Cambie neighbourhood.

The duo had recently renovated the main floor of this home, delivering a sweep of clean, modern spaces for the young professional couple who lives here. While the homeowners wanted those Craftsman bones to speak for themselves, they were ready to simplify. The results made for the perfect backdrop to this clean and contemporary holiday decor scheme.

In the living room, for example, a monolithic grey stone fireplace (a remainder from the mid-’90s) had overtaken the room.

“Really oppressive,” says Falkenberg. “You’d be afraid the thing was going to crush you.” It was swiftly dismantled. Instead, the original chair rail, which circles all the rooms, was extended around new millwork, creating the impression that the gas fireplace had always lived there. (As a bonus, the television mounted above is now a touch recessed, which keeps it from becoming a focal point.)

Marble surrounds the fireplace, tying this light living room

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