LIGHT AND CHARACTER ON NUNS’ ISLAND
Paul-André Lazure and Chantal Ouimet work in the financial world. Lazure is a consultant with Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton and specializes in real estate (he was also a notary for 10 years), while Ouimet is a financial planner for high net-worth individuals. Lazure commutes to an office downtown. Ouimet has a home office from which she visits her clients.
The couple met during the time they were both working for the same company and when they set up home together, they chose Nuns’ Island, an area they both love. As they talk, they wax lyrical about its many attractions — the proximity to downtown Montreal, the recreational trail (in the summer, they get on their bikes at the end of the work day) and last, but certainly not least, the St. Lawrence River.
The couple lived for a while in a large low-rise (they’re not keen on all the apartment towers that have sprouted up at the north and south ends of the island) and in 2009, they moved to their current abode — a modern, 1,000-square-foot condo on the fourth floor of a complex whose style was inspired by Place des Vosges, a fashionable quarter of Paris, which was popular with the nobility in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The brick facade of the Nuns’ Island complex with its pale stone accents, dormer windows and a ‘carriage entrance’ (complete with a cobbled pathway) echoes the original, but it is a more modest version of the Paris landmark. The condo has two bedrooms, two bathrooms (one a powder room) and a balcony. Lazure and Ouimet have, however, furnished their home in an elegant, understated style — a reflection of their good taste and sense of colour and design.
Q Did you bring your furniture with you from your previous home? Chantal: No. We bought almost everything new. Paul-André: Our previous apartment was larger than this one and the furniture was bigger too, so it didn’t really fit this condo. Chantal: We wanted furniture that was contemporary, that had a clean look.
(The layout of the interior is open plan, with an L-shaped living/dining area and galley kitchen. The colour palette is pale grey and white with black and stainless steel accents. In the “L” of the dining area there is a wall of glass — making this area look bigger than it is — and a circular dining table with a green glass top, ringed by white moulded chairs with spindly metal legs.)
Q Where did you get your table? It’s rather unusual. Paul-André: It’s an Italian design and it pulls out to accommodate quite a few people. Chantal: Actually we picked it up
in a store in Old Montreal that sold office furniture. The strip light that hangs above the breakfast bar in the kitchen also came from an office furniture store.
Q The light is quite eye-catching. It looks almost like some sort of futuristic sculpture. You mentioned that the kitchen was more closed-in before?
Chantal: Yes. There were cabinets above the breakfast
bar — where the light is hanging now — so we opened that space up. To replace the storage we were losing, we had cupboards installed on the opposite side of the kitchen, above the cupboards that were already there, right up to the ceiling.
(The breakfast bar, which is topped with caramel-coloured granite, faces the living room, which is furnished in minimalist style with a black couch scattered
with embroidered cushions from Cambodia where the couple went on vacation last year and another circular, glass-topped table.
(Beside the table, is a white leather replica of Mies van der Rohe’s famous Barcelona chair and along one wall, steel shelving on which is displayed handcrafted items from their travels, including a glass plate from Venice with a swirling green design and a large pottery vase covered
in a stylized American Indian motif, which the couple picked up in Utah.
(Off the living room are the two closed bedrooms. One serves as Chantal’s home office. The other is the master bedroom. The office is furnished with a large desk and bookshelves that Ouimet bought a couple of decades ago — the only pieces of furniture she brought with her from her previous home.
(The master bedroom leads to an ensuite bathroom and it has two closets, one a walk-in. The door to the bedroom is white, with small vertical rectangles of frosted glass, custom made by a contractor and one of a couple of other similar doors.)
Paul-André: The doors were solid wood before so we had these installed because they let in the light. The only downside is that during the summer, it gets bright pretty early in the morning, so it’s hard to stay asleep!