Art house down by the bay
Home on the Cowichan estuary is brimming with aboriginal artifacts
What was once a trio of small, rustic cottages tucked along the southern Vancouver Island shoreline of Cowichan estuary has gradually been joined together and transformed into one long, lean house brimming with everything from Bauhaus furniture and First Nations blankets to rare photographs from the American southwest.
The home, which also boasts not- so- hidden cameras and a state- of- the- art alarm system, is a home-cum-gallery like no other, where a centuriesold totem gazes down upon a 700- year- old sacred bronze drum, and a visitor can sink into a leather and chrome armchair to pat the swaying head of a large toy Bengal tiger.
“I bought this property because all three cottages were like a collection of boxes very close to the water, which meant I could take them apart and use the original footprints to create a single home right on the estuary,” said Howard, an art dealer who prefers to keep his last name private.
His renovation project involved rebuilding and linking the cottages while adding new flooring, windows, plumbing, wiring and siding.
“I basically redid the whole space and just used the existing foundation.”
Howard, who moved to the Cowichan Valley from Victoria about 12 years ago, said the redevelopment work has been ongoing for many years, although the bulk of it took place over two.
In addition to creating a unique home, he designed luxurious guest accommodation and fenced the property so there is no intrusion by deer, no nibbling of exotic blooms.
At one end of the house is a great room, in the middle is a broad and comfortable kitchen and at the other end is his reference-library lounge. Above these rooms are three bedrooms, while an addition over one of the “cottages” has become high- end quarters for well-heeled guests.
“When millionaires or billionaires come here to purchase art, there is nowhere for them to stay in this valley, and considering they are used to top-drawer accommodation, I needed to give them what they’re used to.”
He chose fir floors for all the bedrooms, satin-finished walnut everywhere else, spacious decks and large windows. Everywhere is art.
Many of the rooms have at least one deep-toned feature wall to set off the pieces. For instance, in the great room, a charcoal wall has become the dramatic background for a Tsimshian totem, and he used the same tone to matte photographs of American Indian chiefs taken by Hillman.
Howard bought the property because of the exquisite environment — “It has a very special feeling here ... like living in a whole different world or being on Salt Spring Island” — but said it was challenging to build and furnish a house on such a steep slope.
“We carried each and every thing down the cliff, often using ropes and pulleys.” When it came time to take out an old hot tub and enormous fridge, he used a big winch from the road. When a delivery van came with a new fridge, the driver refused to deliver it to the house. “We had to hire a crane to lower it.”
Bringing in the totem was another daunting task, but it was painstakingly done by hand — many hands.
“You gotta be strong, or young, or stupid to take on a project like this,” said a chuckling Howard, who became absorbed with aboriginal art as a young man.
“I was virtually raised on a reserve in the southern United States. My dad had a small trading post in Florida and when I was a kid, my first language was Mikasuki, a dialect of the Seminole language.”
Mikasuki (also called Miccosukee) tribe members live in the historic Everglades, in an area they call the “River of Grass,” where the water shimmers and glimmers between the fronds of waving greenery. The owner acknowledges the waterscape in front of his home is a kind of northern version of that.
At 16, he said, he began working for a man at the Museum of the American Indian in Florida. Soon after, he started collecting for the Denver Museum of Natural History.
His career was firmly launched when he managed to collect a staggering 1,600 items for one museum alone. “I have basically been doing that ever since, for museums, as well as public and private foundations, and collectors.”
He came to Canada when he was 20, after his father advised him to go north or spend the rest of his life making a living in the tourist trade.
“It was a small market then — there were so few collectors, museums or institutions with the wherewithal to collect,” he said. But he also began working with philanthropic individuals who were buying art to give to institutions.
He is troubled by what’s now happening to treasures in the Middle East, where Islamic State militants have been ransacking heritage sites and priceless relics in Syria and Iraq.
“When you look at what’s happening to culturally important sites throughout the world, you realize these artifacts should be all our responsibility.
“We have the Cultural Property Act in Canada to help preserve our own heritage, but greater diversification of cultural heritage should be our goal. So we can safeguard these things ... as was done with things like the Elgin marbles,” he said, referring to the famous collection of ancient Greek sculptures now kept in the British Museum.
During his life, Howard has been motivated to document and preserve disappearing aboriginal culture and help tell the First Nations’ story. He prizes photographic studies such as those taken of the Indian chiefs by Hillman, because they show the strong characters of his subjects, not an idealized or sentimental interpretation.
“I like to think of my home as a rich man’s cabin on the water dating from the 1920s.”
When you look at what’s happening to culturally important sites throughout the world, you realize these artifacts should be all our responsibility.
HOWARD ART DEALER