Architecture: Luxury Is a Pared-Down Nova Scotia Cottage

Originally published in the Globe and Mail. Read the full text here.

Luxury Is a pared-down Nova Scotia cottage

After architect Nova Tayona submitted her initial plan for the Lockeport Beach House, a summer home in southwestern Nova Scotia, the client, Teri Appleby, asked her to pare it down. The design was hardly extravagant, but it had features Ms. Appleby deemed unnecessary. Rec rooms and second kitchens are nice, but do you need them in a cottage? How important is a pool when you have the ocean nearby?

Ms. Tayona and Ms. Appleby whittled the plan down to basics: bedrooms, living-dining space, and a large porch. The result is a summer home that does what it’s supposed to do and nothing more. For Ms. Appleby, her husband, Keith Dwyer, and their two young sons, ages 13 and 10, the site is a sanctuary – a refuge from a world of distractions.

It’s often said that Maritimers are modest people. Beachfront mansions with boathouses the size of fire halls? Leave that to Muskoka. In Atlantic Canada, conspicuous consumption – what folks there call “putting on airs” – is a vice, not a virtue. The region has some of the finest architecture in Canada, but it’s a tradition born of simplicity.

This is an excerpt. Read the full text here.