Newlyweds opt for the Plateau
Jax Jacobsen grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., but she has had a lifelong love affair with Montreal. Even when she was going to high school, she started to make plans to move to the city. Throughout her college years, she made several forays north of the border, finally ending up at McGill University where she earned a master’s degree in political science.
Jacobsen lived in Montreal for two years but was soon off again to gain additional academic qualifications. She is now a freelance journalist and has worked and studied in London; Washington, D.C.; and Halifax. When she moved to Nova Scotia (where she covered the mining industry), she didn’t know a soul, but as luck would have it, a month after her arrival, she met Matt Coté.
Like Jacobsen, Coté, a FrancoOntarian from Kipling, Ont., has a Norwegian background and the couple soon found they had a lot in common. Coté, who heads the Quebec division of Enercon, a Germany company that manufactures wind turbines, moved to Montreal in November 2013. Five months later, Jacobsen followed him to the city she loves and, last October, the couple tied the knot.
The newlyweds have set up house in the top floor of a triplex in the Plateau – an area that had long appealed to Jacobsen. Their apartment has two bedrooms (one of which has been made into a den) and two balconies – one at each end of the building.
Q How did you find your apartment? Jacobsen: Matt came ahead of me, so it was really him who found it, but I kind of pointed him in the right direction. Although Matt is a francophone, he wasn’t really familiar with Montreal because he grew up in northern Ontario.
He found our place on a website called PadMapper. It’s better than Kijiji or Craigslist because you can
narrow down a property with details, such as how many bedrooms you want and where it’s located in the city. The website also includes a map.
Q: What about your furniture? Did you transport it from Halifax? Jacobsen: Yes. We had most of this stuff before. Our double bed was Matt’s bed in Halifax and the bed at the far end of the hallway was my bed.
(We walk to the end of the hall. The bed in question is tucked into a corner, which has a window and a door, leading to one of the couple’s two balconies. Around the bed are shelves crammed with books.)
We haven’t really figured out what to do with this space. For a long time, Matt was toying with the idea of making it like a sitting room area, but we’d need to buy a loveseat or something and we had the bed already. It’s not perfect, but it will do for now.
(The couple’s bedroom is off the hallway. Along one wall hang four flags, all of which have some connection with the couple. The Maple Leaf is displayed alongside the flags of Norway, Nova Scotia and the green and white ensign of Ontario’s francophone community.
Back out in the hallway stands a chest of drawers, behind which is an alcove where two bicycles are suspended from a rack underneath the ceiling.)
Q: That’s very ingenious. Was there a closet here before? Jacobsen: No, just an empty space. Matt made the rack. He bought me a bike for my birthday last year, but I didn’t think I’d be able to carry it up and down the stairs, so I left it outside. Within a week, the bike was stolen!
Q: You mentioned you inherited the chest of drawers from the previous renter? Jacobsen: That and also our
dining room table and chairs.
Q: So you lucked out? Jacobsen: Pretty much!
(We move down into the den, which is off the open dining/ kitchen area. On the wall above a futon hangs an old-fashioned carved wood cuckoo clock.)
Q: I haven’t seen one of those in a while. Jacobsen: My grandfather used to build cuckoo clocks from scratch. It was in my family’s house for a long, long time. The thing is Matt can’t get it to work properly.
Q: Oh. Doesn’t the cuckoo jump out any more? Jacobsen: It does, but at odd times. It went off once at 2 a.m. and sounded 11 cuckoos!
(Back in the dining room I notice a black Ikea unit with a bright red door.)
Q: I like your spiffy red door. What’s that all about? Jacobsen: (Laughs.) That’s our liquor cabinet. From time to time, we have what we refer to as a “red door” evening, when we sit down to relax and enjoy a couple of drinks.