DOWN BY THE RIVER, A COUPLE’S DREAM
Couple creates home to suit both their needs, in a forest on the banks of the Cowichan River
Parker Jefferson always wanted a timber-frame house with handsome posts and curving knee braces, but he also longed to be near a river so he could indulge his passion for fly-fishing. His wife, Cathi, loves timber-frame houses, too, but isn’t into hip waders or knee braces, a common stabilizing structure used in everything from Elizabethan mansions to classic ships.
Being a full-time potter, she hankered for a large workspace, display area and place for her kiln. “Small house, big studio. That’s my motto,” she said with a grin.
Parker and Cathi managed to create a home to suit both their needs, in a forest on the banks of the Cowichan River.
It looks like a ski chalet on the inside, with cement floors, pine ceilings and plenty of posts and beams, but outside it resembles an industrial building, thanks to its steep metal roof and siding.
“It was all designed on a computer, and was also designed to be low-maintenance,” said Parker, who was general contractor and did all the interior carpentry and finishing work, from bookcases to door trim and furniture.
He and Cathi came up with the concept and B.C. Timberframe designed the structure, pre-cut all the wood and delivered it on a flatbed truck. “It took less than a week for four guys to put it together like LEGO,” said Cathi. The walls — prefabricated structural insulated panels — went up quickly, too.
“The home is over-engineered, extremely thermally efficient and earthquake-resistant,” said Parker, who is a film producer but also handy with a hammer and saw.
“As a kid, my dad taught me how to use tools and in the 1970s, I was a ski bum at Whistler. It was easy to find work in the summers doing construction. A friend and I built a little cabin on Mt. Baldy near Osoyoos in 1973 and as there was no electricity, we did the whole thing with chainsaws and handsaws.
“Later on, Cathi and I built a house in Abbotsford and I did all the finishing there, too.”
Parker said working with advertising agencies to produce award-winning television commercials — most notably his famous Kokanee beer ads featuring a Sasquatch and Brew the dog — was good preparation for general contracting.
“Organizing a film crew is not dissimilar to organizing a construction crew. Things have to come together at the right moment, you have to have a plan, you have to be creative and know how everything fits in. Producing films is actually what gave me the confidence to do this.”
It helps that his wife is creative, too.
“He’s the logical one, with a degree in organic chemistry, and I’m the artist,” said Cathi, who wanted the house to reflect the same earth tones and neutral colours of her high-fire pottery.
A full-time artist for 43 years, she was a nurse for 25, and started taking pottery lessons as soon as she graduated from nursing.
Her studio is full of her own work, but the house brims with art and pottery from around the world, by First Nations artists as well as those from China, Japan, Australia, Central America and the United Kingdom.
“I’ve been lucky to be able to teach and do residencies in many different places, to go away for months at a time and be inspired by other artists and surroundings.”
But coming home to her studio is always a pleasure, one she will share with visitors next weekend when her gallery is featured on the Cowichan Artisans Spring Studio Tour.
She was a founding member of the group, which came together seven years ago: “We wanted to promote fine craftsmanship and high-quality professional artists, but [also hold] studio weekends where we are all open at the same time.”
Visitors always recognize the Jeffersons’ property because of the buildings’ galvanized steel roofs and siding, “which takes zero maintenance and was much cheaper than cedar siding or Hardieplank,” said Parker.
The steep roof pitch is good in the snow and Parker devised a clever idea for the gutters, which are located only over door entrances. “They are on a spring system, which I attached to the fascia. As the gutter fills, it tips over to drop the snow, then springs back.”
The main house is 1,500 square feet and a recent addition of 550 square feet is now home to Cathi’s parents, who are in their late 80s. The studio, with gallery above, comprises another 1,000 square feet.
All the buildings have radiant, in-floor heat fed by an open-loop geothermal system, which uses their well water.
“We are on alluvial gravel, close to the river with about the fastest recharging aquifer in the valley,” said Parker. “For this kind of system, you need absolutely pure water, and we have it, with a neutral pH, too.”
He said payback on the heating system was less than five years and their heating bill, not counting the pottery-firing kiln, is less than $30 a month for all the buildings.
Their septic field is unusual because the gravel soil perks too fast.
“We would have had to take out a fairly large chunk of forest to create a septic field,” he said, adding he was told they’d have to dig out loads of gravel and then truck in fill and a huge sand filter.
“I said: ‘Are you kidding me?’ That would have changed the whole character of the property.”