ARCHITECTURAL GEM
1875 workers’ cottage transformed into cosy St-Henri family home
Patrick Turner grew up in the village of Dunham in the heart of the Eastern Townships wine country, but when it was time to go to college, he moved to Ontario where he studied architecture at the University of Toronto. He stayed in the city for 10 years, working as an architectural and product designer and running his own company THOUT (as in “without”, a reference to a cabin without running water or electricity).
Turner eventually moved back to Quebec “to marry Katharine.” His wife, Katharine Dempsey, grew up in England and came to Montreal in 2007 to study creative writing at Concordia University. Today she is a writer and editor at a new publication — a startup, she explains. Turner now works for an architectural firm, but THOUT still functions as an online entity.
When it was time to think of having a family, the couple started looking for a place they could renovate themselves. A couple of offers fell through, as did one for the home they would eventually buy, but they caught that one on the second go-round.
It was an 1875 former workers’ cottage in St-Henri, and according to Turner, a developer had bought the building, hoping to pull it down and construct something else. Because of its historic value, he was not allowed to do that, so he put it back on the market. Turner and Dempsey snapped it up and started the challenging process of renovation. They have turned what was originally a couple of separate units into a cosy two-storey family home, replete with architectural features from the 19th century.
Q I see you’ve kept a lot of the original materials.
A Yes, but I repurposed a lot. These wide pine floors are actually what were the ceilings. When I removed the many layers that were here, these planks were underneath. The wood was beautiful. It was glowing!
Q Because it had been covered for so many years?
A Exactly. We also kept a lot of the wood that was on the walls. The boards are four inches thick.
Q Did that mean you didn’t have to do any insulation?
A There was no insulation in the building at all — so yes, the wood does the trick but I did do a technical insulation to the exterior.
Q I gather you designed the new space yourself ?
A I did and I must say that it almost became more of an archeology project than an architectural one.
Q How so?
A (Laughs.) Well, when I started peeling off some of the old materials, I kept finding bits and pieces from the past.
Q Such as?
(He walks me to the wall by the front door where he has made a framed collage of some of the things he found — a tintype photo, a rusted knife and a bottle that had contained strychnine.)
A So much of the house was damaged. For example, there was a chimney with no foundation so it was pulling the rest of the building down. It’s gone! It would have been a shared chimney with the people next door.
Q Would it have been for a wood stove?
A I’m assuming so. As well as providing heat, it would have been used for cooking.
(He points out where the stove pipe would have been, part of the original back wall. A kitchen has now been added to this part of the house. An opening half way up the wall allows you to see into the dining room, next to which is a playroom designed for the couple’s three youngsters, all of whom are under six years old. They sleep upstairs in snug little bedrooms with dormer windows, tucked up under the eaves.)
Q I guess most of your furniture is antique, in keeping with the style of the cottage?
A Not entirely. We’ve mixed old and new. The dining table is a 300-year-old work bench that my grandmother used as her desk.
Q And the hanging lamp above it that looks like a tangle of electrical wires?
A That’s one of my own designs. The piece beside Katharine’s work area is an original Charles Eames mid-century moulded chair. I found it in the garbage. It was covered with vinyl so I just took acetone and cleaned it.
Q And those forks stuck onto the board on the wall? What on Earth are those?
A (Laughs.) That’s another of my original designs and one of the most successful. It’s called “Forked Up” and it was part of a kitchen equipment project. George Jensen, the famous jewelry company, bought a bigger version which hangs in an airport in Denmark. A museum in North Carolina also bought one. I think I did 25 of these altogether and they ended up all over the world.