BAYVIEW CONDO CELEBRATES SEASON
Downsizing to a Songhees two-bedroom hasn’t stopped Charles Locker from celebrating the season in style
When you have a wonderful collection of contemporary art and classic furniture, chosen and purchased with great care and love over more than five decades with your wife, it’s not easy to downsize. Yet Charles Locker, whose wife, Victoria, died three years ago on Boxing Day, has managed to create a new home and stylish setting in his new condo at Bayview One by keeping only the best of the best — and adding a few well-thought-out pieces.
The Lockers, who previously lived in a house that was twice the size of the condo with a well-tended garden, always entertained on a grand scale inside and out, with candlelit tables, linen cloths and masses of roses.
Initially, Locker thought he could stay in those long-familiar surroundings if he changed the look.
So he replaced the dark floors with pale grey wood and repainted the dark jewel-toned walls with bright white.
But the sad memories lingered, despite the cosmetic facelift. After all, he and Victoria had met when he was 16 and she was 18 and they were together 53 years.
So this year, he sold the house and moved into the Songhees condo.
“The best thing about this place is I don’t feel lonely here,” said Locker, whose previous garden had a tall, manicured hedge that made him feel a little cut off when suddenly on his own.
“My eldest son came over here the other day and said: ‘Dad it feels like you have a home again.’ ”
It was a major effort to downsize, because Locker had a lot of furniture, including some large pieces.
“It was hard to give up so many of my favourite big pieces of furniture, but what was nice was, my sons took many of them, including our Chinese tables and green leather sofa.”
He managed to find room for the large sideboard from his old dining room, but the former dining table went to a friend and was replaced by a smaller, round, antique reproduction by Lillian Auguste, from Jordans.
The 1,350-square-foot condo has a broad 150square-foot deck that runs across the front of both the south-facing living room and den, adding to the physical as well as the visual space. It offers glimpses of the legislature buildings and Empress Hotel.
Inside, Locker has transformed the space into a handsome home — although he admits with a laugh that he’s gone “a little over the top for Christmas.”
Since moving in this summer, he has repainted many walls and ceilings, replacing the previous off-white shades with deeper colours, such as a dark smoke-green in the den, which is currently being redone.
He didn’t sketch out furniture arrangements in advance to see if things would fit. “I just brought pieces in, pushed them around and took out what didn’t work.” He hung large mirrors and canvases by local artists Andy Wooldridge, Robert Genn, Harry Heine, Wendy Skog, Phyllis Sorota and British watercolourist Edward Simpson, as well as many pieces collected on his travels with Victoria. He is not installing any crown moulding or other millwork because, although he has many classic pieces, “I still want this space to look like a modern home.”
That’s also why he chose a deep, down-filled white sofa with a faint silver-thread stripe running through it. The sumptuous piece injects a contemporary note into the compact living room.
Short hallways lead to two separate bedrooms either side of the living room and both have large ensuites with showers, expansive tubs and vanities. In one hallway, Locker has hung a Wooldridge painting, in the other a hand-carved Italian mirror.
Most of the furniture is from Jordans, including a Theodore Alexander coffee table from that designer’s modern classic collection.
Four dining-room chairs, by the same designer, include two “ladies” chairs without arms and two “men’s” chairs with arms. The latter swing round when not used for dining to double as armchairs in the living room.
One of Locker’s pride and joys is a large, round, handcrafted reproduction table from the Althorp Living History Collection conceived by Earl Spencer, the brother of Princess Diana.
Other favourites are two matching marble-topped tables either side of the fireplace, which Victoria found at John Brown’s store Mirage, on Fort Street, in 1983.
Made in Indonesia, the two have carved golden eagle pedestals and were featured in a tony design magazine decades ago, said Brown, whose new store, Acanthus by the Sea, is in Sidney.
Locker noted that his late wife had great taste and a natural talent for interior design. They enjoyed travelling together and her favourite country was Italy — hence the painting of Venice in the bedroom. “She liked to live in a comfortable, elegant environment, but always wanted our house to be a home, not an ice palace.”