My House Beautiful
Loss becomes gain after family bungalow destroyed by fire
Gorgeous, energy efficient home replaces bungalow lost to a fire.
It was close to midnight on Labour Day weekend in 2011 when Kelly and Val James started hearing funny noises in their walls. “I thought it was mice,” says Val, adding that they had experienced previous invasions when the weather suddenly turned cold.
Their children were hosting a sleepover, and they were all watching a movie in the living room of their Holyrood bungalow, when the sounds started. “It had been a cold, rainy day,” adds Kelly, who had lit a fire in the 1960s-era fireplace.
They later learned that the cool weather outside, combined with a number of factors — including the fireplace’s age and many years of use — had created the perfect conditions for the hearth’s wooden framing to self-combust.
“The fire travelled up the gables and into the attic so fast, all the wiring was burned and the fire alarms didn’t even have a chance to go off,” Kelly says.
Thankfully, the family realized they weren’t dealing with rodents, and got outside.
Within 30 minutes, the home’s roof and about half of the family’s possessions were destroyed. Firefighters quickly got the blaze under control, and rescued many of their things, including a large collection of antiques and their son Kai’s double bass cello.
Despite the shock and loss (the house was Kelly’s childhood home and he learned to swim in the basement swimming pool his father added to the house), the family was soon renting the house next door and rebuilding on the home’s original footprint.
The new home is built in a modernized arts and crafts style, with plenty of up-tothe-minute details.
Not only does its design incorporate solar panels on the roof that will produce more electricity than the house consumes — aiming for netzero status — there’s special attention paid to lighting, and a striking juxtaposition of antique furnishings and contemporary fittings.
The couple enlisted a trusted architect from Utah, as well as Peter Amerongen of Habitat Studio & Workshop Ltd., and (to get the punch they wanted colour-wise) interior designer Sonja Norton.
With this team’s help, they added a second floor for Kelly’s boardroom and office and they also got rid of the pool. It has been replaced by a large family room and their son’s book-lined bedroom.
The basement also houses one of Kelly’s favourite spaces, the mechanical room. This is where an oddball system of large towers store water heated by solar panels. These, together with their new fireplace — a tall, wood burning unit surrounded by granite — now heat the home.
Kelly is a mechanical engineer and inventor, and also vice-president of the Edmonton Solar Society. So he had no qualms installing a topof-the line Walltherm European wood gasification system, which uses about 1-1/2 cords of wood a year, to heat the 2,700-square-foot home. The family pays only about $70 a month for electricity and — depending on the sun and outside temperature — gas bills range from pennies to $1 a day.
Val is an at-home mom and self-declared neat freak, so she wanted the new home’s design to minimize housework.
The ski chalet-type mud room with its heated floor, built-in cubbies, and large overhead storage cupboards means there is a place for three seasons’ worth of coats and bulky sporting equipment.
In the kitchen, what looks like a permanent wall magically pulls out to reveal storage for the built-in vacuum. An accordion-style, hickory wood “garage” hides heavy appliances, while a wall-mounted, chrome Ikea dish rack folds away to create more space on the black granite counters when Val bakes.
Each fall, the couple crushes enough fresh grapes to make 120 bottles of homemade wine, so Kelly’s wish list included a trap door from the mud room to the basement, for easy passage of giant decanters of grape juice.
The couple says living next door during the home’s construction meant a lot of tweaking went on during the build. Rather than having an angled wall end in wasted space above the front staircase, they created an art shelf, where various treasured possessions — including one of Kelly’s most notable inventions, the prosthetic C-Leg — are displayed.
On a tip from one of the builders, exterior bricks were reclaimed from an old farmyard to complement beautiful cedar detailing, including a pergola-style design over the garage door.
Mission-style casings, rather than flush, mitred joints around doors and windows, add to the home’s unique look.
Val knew her new north kitchen was going to be darker than the original south-facing version, so they used an open design to maximize natural light from the second floor’s large, triangular skylight. To lighten the look of the oak staircase, Kelly designed and installed sparkling glass spindles instead of solid glass panels. These tubes of glass surrounding Plexiglas supports don’t show fingerprints, a bonus in Val’s eyes.
The couple enlisted Lighting Unlimited to complement unique lighting features they already owned, including the dining area’s delicate Murano, hand-blown glass chandelier, which came home in one piece from Vienna, then survived the fire.
Transparent, rectangular pendant lights over the kitchen’s island create more eye-catching sparkle.
In the front entrance, adjustable, silver and glass rings create a chandelier-like orb that also reflects natural light.
The couple is very grateful to still have their large antique collection, including a bird’s eye maple armoire hutch and matching wardrobe that Kelly bought for $50 apiece in the 1980s, when he worked as a mover’s assistant.
Like other favourite pieces, including a four-poster bed and wall-length carved armoire that still bear scars from the fire, the antiques work perfectly in a place of residence that’s been reborn with new ideas but is true to its owners’ history.