A past commodore of the Bay of Quinte Yacht Club, Kim undertook to connect her property to the lake through a renovation that had as its centrepiece a landscaped link between her home and the lakeshore it sits on. The first step was restoring the mid-20th-century, 5,000-square-foot house.
Once upon a time, a tiny guesthouse built in the late 1890s sat in the corner of a wooded backyard in St. Lambert, behind a larger, brick-clad family home. The 600-square-foot shack was in such terrible condition that in 2008, when Jean-Luc Gagnon and Marie-Hélène Larouche bought the property it sat on, the deed of sale included a demolition permit, courtesy of the city.
Throughout the cold months of the year, when most of us are dreaming about our gardens, plant breeders are already hard at work selecting new varieties. It’s a multi-step process involving rigorous field trials at public gardens, universities, nurseries and by individual growers, seed producers and industry representatives.
Isabelle Bérubé and her husband built their dream house four years ago on a 12-acre property in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, an hour’s drive southeast of Montreal. Passionate nature lovers, they planted flower gardens, vegetables and fruit trees to get the most out of country life.
Paul Ygartua is a creature of habit, yet he’s in a state of constant reinvention. The artist, who was born in Bebington, England and is based in Vancouver, France, Spain or the U.K. depending on the time of year, paints about 10 hours a day, often completing a new work in that time.
Michel LeRoux vividly remembers May 20, 1980 as the blessed day his only daughter, Marie-Hélène, came into existence. Moreover, it was the day LeRoux first went out to buy himself oil paints and brushes – the day when the illustrious career of a Quebec artist was also born.
For more than a year, headlines have been drawing attention to the heated real estate markets in Vancouver and Toronto. With prices climbing at a fast clip and foreign investors driving them even higher, provincial lawmakers in both British Columbia and Ontario have introduced new rules to curb spiking prices in an attempt to keep the cost of home-ownership within reach of more than just the ultra-rich.
For most people, having an in-house artist means tacking a few children’s drawings onto the fridge. But this east-end condominium has become a showcase for work by the owner’s spouse, an artist from Miami who has brought those South Beach-inspired hues north to Montreal.
The town is a 29-kilometre stretch along a barrier island off the eastern coast of Florida. It is no wider than 1.2 kilometres and narrows to about 150 metres at points, covering an area of 27 square kilometres, of which only 10 is land. The rest is water. Oh, and there is sunshine everywhere.
Mélanie Laberge and her husband Robin wanted to transform their two-storey duplex in Rosemont-La Petite Patrie into a single-family home. Moreover, they wanted the home to be filled with natural light.