Modern vintage in Fairfield
Clean lines meet fabulous finds in ‘quiet and elegant’ old English-style cottage
Barbara and Michael Gergel don’t believe in half measures when it comes to creating an outdoor environment. After buying their old English-style cottage in Fairfield, they decided to relandscape in a big way by removing all the lawn and plants, digging down the entire back garden by a metre, and adding cream walls that are actually planters, which they filled with hedging plants to create a buffer from the road and a unique, sunken living space.
They converted an old garage at the bottom of their garden into a studio, called “the green room.” They transformed the former driveway into a bird sanctuary and remodelled the interior of their home to create a stylish, flowing synergy between the two spaces that is both casual and classic.
The wonders they have wrought in their courtyard and garden will be on display during the Victoria Conservatory of Music Garden Tour on Mothers’ Day weekend.
Barbara describes the style as modern vintage.
“If you have too much vintage, it looks syrupy,” said Barbara, who has a diploma from the Horticulture Centre of the Pacific and is a project manager and designer for Demitasse Garden Centre.
“I see modern vintage as quiet and elegant. I like to play on clean, modern lines, so things don’t jump out at you, but then I like to add some cachet of the ’20s and ’40s.”
The stylist is an avid collector with a wacky side. She never follows trends or copies another person’s look, and has a knack for weaving together disparate things and tweaking a design so it suddenly seems fresh and original.
“I like doing all kinds of different looks, but this house told me what it wants,” she explained. “If you really tune into a space and follow what you love, you will develop a feeling for it.”
In this case, she and her husband, Michael, knew immediately that this property was right for them.
They bought it in 2003 from upholsterer Bonnie Schmaus, a business associate who was trying to sell it and asked for Barbara’s advice on how to fit a dishwasher into the kitchen. It was serendipitous, as the Gergels were living in Maple Bay but looking to move to Victoria.
When Barbara saw the 1925 house, she knew the kitchen didn’t need or want a dishwasher, but she wanted the house.
“We had always built our own homes, so this was a big switch, but we both felt we could do something here. It’s been a wonderful journey. This house has been just as good for me as I’ve been for it,” she said, noting that through the house and garden, she has made the greatest friendships of her life, with local garden and flower gurus such as Susan Ramsey and Valerie Murray.
Inside the home, the Gergels made mostly cosmetic changes. For instance, in the den, now dubbed the “tree room,” they painted the walls a rich, earthy brown and had Bruce Ketterer craft built-in storage and closets on either side of the hide-a-bed.
At auctions, Barbara collected vintage tree art to hang on the walls, and outside, she collected feathers to attach to the curtains.
The greatest transformation happened in the garden, after they hired Bill Kennedy Construction to reduce the level of the backyard by a metre, so they could walk out the basement door rather than climb up five steps.
“Instead of raising the roof, we dug down,” Barbara said with a chuckle, noting the new 1,200-square-foot living space is wonderful for relaxing and entertaining.
“We now have a little house that lives big.”
Her husband, who works in IT for the provincial government, does almost all the cooking outside now, on the barbecue.
“When we created this patio, we didn’t realize how much utilization and satisfaction we would get out of it,” said Michael.
“It is almost our primary kitchen and we often eat outside in the studio. It feels like we’re really away, the next best thing to being on vacation, when we sit outside.”
While the garden can be cool and windy, as it’s near the water, when the sun shines, the concrete warms up and holds the heat, he said. And being able to walk out at ground level from the back door is a huge improvement.
“It was a bit intimidating at first, watching the number of truckloads of earth that came out. Our neighbours thought we were doubling the size of the house or putting in a swimming pool,” he said.
Instead of mowing lawns, he now sweeps or hoses off the courtyard, and Barbara keeps busy creating tapestries of colour, texture and contour that flow from the garden into the home, and out again through windows and glass doors.
In some ways, the setting is more an art installation than a garden. “It’s all about relationships and interweaving beautiful things,” Barbara said.
Dancing along the edges of the property are masses of tall, decorative grasses, while the front corner is her gift to the neighbourhood, a place where passers-by often stop to marvel and chat. Here is her healing garden, with kale, rosemary, thyme, roses, nasturtiums and Chilean guava.
“This is the informal, public part of my garden, my nod to the Prairies where I grew up,” she said.
The back courtyard is formal, invisible from the road and utterly private, thanks to the low walls and hedge. Along one of the inner dividing walls, she has created garlands of mosses and sedums against a backdrop of bushes from the olive family.