Life on a River
An idyllic island retreat on the St. Lawrence Seaway that’s the epitome of rustic elegance.
JOE BRENNAN AND DANNY GREENGLASS have always enjoyed the outdoors — hiking and riding their bikes, say — but over three decades of building high-end homes together for clients in Toronto, Muskoka and Palm Beach, Fla., meant they rarely allowed themselves the downtime to commit to regular escapes. This changed once they built their island retreat in eastern Ontario. “When you park your car and get on your boat, your shoulders just drop,” says Joe. “It’s like arriving in a whole other world.” In 2011, Joe and Danny — partners in work and in life — bought Shanty Island on the St. Lawrence River near Gananoque, Ont., with the plan to build a house. They had just completed a project on a nearby island, and the location — a historic shipping artery dotted with trading posts — seemed at once idyllic and emblematic of the Canadian outdoors. They purchased the property thinking they would use it for three of the four seasons and finally spend time relaxing while hosting family and friends during the prime summer months.
It was only when they began construction (everything arrived by barge with a road built on the island to accommodate the trucks) that they discovered what Joe describes as “the best part”: a seemingly limitless supply of granite stones that were scattered under ground cover, which would come to inform both the design of the house and the landscaping. This windfall — Joe recalls collecting 12-foothigh piles — gave new meaning to sourcing locally. “People talk about finding things within 100 miles,” says Joe. “These raw materials were 50 feet away.”
Composed of stone- and cedar-clad pavilions linked by glass passageways, the 4,800-square-foot house shows a refined respect for its surroundings. “I’m in the architectural business, but I didn’t want an architectural style,” says Joe. “I wanted what was here — the stone — and something very understated.”
Set back from the water, the house extends widthwise like an updated New England bungalow, the Georgian influence revealed through details like the Palladian windows. The layout is largely open, with the principal suite on one end, and one of four guest bedrooms filling a quiet corner overlooking the river on the other. Two more bedrooms are housed in “bunkies,” or small cabins, with a fifth suite occupying the four-storey tower that rises above the house’s pitched roofs. Distinctive for its height, it nods to similar structures dating back to the early 20th century that are