A FRESH APPROACH TO CLASSIC DESIGNS
Glenview shows off its singles in Monahan Landing
Bucking the trend of open-concept floor plans for many homes today, the models that opened recently in Monahan Landing take a different approach.
Creating separate living areas either through the use of walls or elevation, the two models by Glenview Homes are examples of a more classic layout that can accommodate shifting needs while maintaining a good flow.
“We wanted something that would really show classic style” but with a fresh look, says Nisha Cairo, Glenview’s director of sales and marketing.
In the smaller Graystone model, that means making your way through the main floor to discover what it has to offer, which is plenty. It starts with a compact office featuring a 12-foot ceiling right off the foyer and leads to an inviting dining room with a generous bay window. While the light and bright model does benefit from extra windows since it’s on a corner lot, it was important to Glenview to “max out the window space,” says Cairo. So the powder room, for instance, will have a window whether it’s a corner lot or not.
It’s not until you reach the living room toward the back of the house that you also discover the kitchen, tucked behind a dining room wall, making a pleasant change to the more expected open-concept layout.
“With an open concept, it’s nice, but you don’t have any walls to hang art or to place your furniture, so it’s tough to furnish and to make full use of the space,” Cairo says.
Aimed at young couples and singles, the 2,392-square-foot, three-bedroom home offers many features important to buyers today such as second-floor laundry, ninefoot ceilings, a finished basement and hardwood floors.
Glenview Homes, which was launched by brothers Ian and Mark Shabinsky last March, puts an emphasis on “an extraordinarily high level of included standard features,” says president Frank Cairo, so that buyers can have a “design-oriented esthetic in their homes without the need to substantially upgrade them.”
Next door at the larger Meadowbrook, the layout is entirely different, using multiple levels “so you can entertain a large number of people in that house and have each of the areas of the home separated by grade or elevation” rather than walls, says Frank Cairo, who pushed to have the Meadowbrook as one of the models built because he felt it would be easier to visualize the layout than on paper alone.
The effect is dramatic, but not immediate. First you must step up from the foyer to the formal dining room and living room, which is finished as a contemporary sitting room with lots of metal accents. Only then does the open staircase leading to the “middle floor” family room, as Frank Cairo calls it, become visible, offering an unbroken line of sight to its vaulted ceiling, gas fireplace and french doors that lead to a balcony. At the same time open and cosy, it’s a space “to relax and get away from the kitchen or get away from the bedrooms in a very separated formal or casual space depending on the family needs,” he says.
The openness continues with a knee wall ringing the upper hallway, providing privacy for the bedrooms above without closing in the space.
The 2,748-square-foot Meadowbrook targets a more mature family, with “lots of different spaces that people can interpret how they like,” says Nisha Cairo, who is married to Frank.
Glenview is offering six floor plans in all. While the largest, the Kingsley, is Glenview’s biggest seller, it was one of the smallest that hooked Suzanne Boucher and her husband.
“Everything just seemed to fit our criteria of what we were looking for,” she says in explaining why they bought last summer ahead of their schedule to move up from their nearby townhome to a single-family home.
“It was all about timing, the right place, the right time, the right price.”
They bought the 2,044-square-foot Copperwood, a three-bedroom, single-car garage model that offers enough room for them and their three-year-old son, who turns four just after they move in this summer. It was important for Boucher and husband Jerry Gregoire, who are both francophones, to stay in the area so their son could attend the neighbourhood’s French public school: Maurice-Lapointe.
In fact, the established amenities is one of the benefits touted by Frank Cairo. In many new developments, it can take years before facilities such as schools and shopping are added to the mix, even if they are planned for right from the beginning. But because Monahan Landing is being built adjacent to the long-established Bridlewood community, those services are already in place.
Next up for the builder, who will build about 600 units on the site it shares with Mattamy Homes, is the release of phase two, likely in May, which will include townhomes.