A HOME TO GROW IN
Nuns’ Island townhouse offered couple more space to raise their young child, writes Helga Loverseed.
François Lévesque loves Nuns’ Island. As a child, he visited the Verdun neighbourhood many times and he has lived there most of his adult life. Now 53 and a telecom professional, he recalls that when he was a boy, the island was mostly farmland. He remembers building ‘forts’ on the land that once belonged to the nuns after whom the island is named.
Recently, while chatting to a neighbour, Lévesque discovered that the backyard swimming pool outside the townhouse he shares with his wife, Nathalie Anne Paquette, and their son Xavier, was built on the foundations of one of the nuns’ buildings — an interesting coincidence of history.
Paquette is a stay-at-home mom and the couple moved into their current abode in April 2009. They had been living in a smaller home — also on Nuns’ Island — but they needed more space to accommodate their growing son. (He was a toddler when they moved in.) The townhouse has three bedrooms (one is a sitting room for Xavier), an open-plan dining and living room with a wood-burning fireplace, a kitchen with a dinette, a mezzanine (which serves as a home office) and a basement.
Q Your townhouse looks very modern. Did you buy it new? Lévesque No. It was built in 1993, but we did make a few changes before we moved in. Paquette The configuration of the house was perfect for our needs, so we didn’t need to take down walls or anything, but we redid the bathrooms, the closets, those kinds of things.
L We also had to replace the roof and upgrade the kitchen. The white kitchen cabinets and glass-fronted units were here, but we replaced the countertops with quartz and installed the tiled backsplash. Most of the furniture came from our previous home but we bought a few new things. Q Can you point those out?
P The glass-topped table in the dinette was one of them. We bought it in Structube. But let me show you a couple of armchairs I bought at a bargain price. We had those in our previous house.
(We walk into the living room where two Louis XV-style chairs form a seating area to the right of the fireplace. They match the neutral walls — a shade called ‘linen’ explains Paquette. Dramatic black touches are provided by a couple leather-upholstered sofas.)
P A big hotel in Maine was going out of business and these chairs were going for $25 a pop! I had them reupholstered. Chairs like this are normally worth around a grand apiece.
Q That certainly was a good deal! Now tell me about your paintings. The abstract above the fireplace for example. Is that an original?
P (Laughs.) We wish it was an original. It’s a Riopelle print. Some of the other pictures on the wall were done by my sister-inlaw and by Xavier when he was about six or seven years old.
Q What’s this gold statuette?
L That’s a Félix. It was awarded to my father, Raymond Lévesque. He was a popular singer/songwriter in the era of the Quebec chansonniers. He’s in his 90s now and no longer performs but he was famous back in the day and did shows with the likes of Jacques Brel.
(The musical theme is echoed in Xavier’s bedroom and living room. Paquette has an eye for interior design — she is responsible for the décor throughout the house — and she has stuck some long-playing vinyl records to the wall to create a decorative feature. There are more vinyl records in Xavier’s living room — 45 rpms this time, hung as a mobile from the ceiling.)
That’s a great idea, I’ve never seen records used that way before.
(We walk up to the mezzanine home office where I spot an old manual typewriter standing on a little side table.)
Q There must be a story behind this as well?
L There is. The typewriter belonged to my grandfather who was from a big French Canadian family and got an education, courtesy of the Catholic Church. He became a writer and editor of important journals.
Q But now you’re going to leave your lovely home behind?
L We are. Having upsized, we’re now downsizing so we’ve put the townhouse on the market.
Q Is there a particular reason? P We’re at a different stage in our lives than when we bought it. Xavier will soon be 13 and will probably move away from home before too long.
Q Are you moving downtown? L Oh no. We’re staying on the island, so right now we’re shopping around for a condo. Xavier has been the catalyst for us moving. He can’t wait to sample the condo lifestyle!
If you would like your home to be considered for Shelter, please contact hloverseed@sympatico.ca