Steeped in tradition
Century-old Glebe home stays true to its roots, thanks to owner’s herculean renovation efforts
If Lynn Curry had simply opted to wash dishes by hand, Ottawa would be minus one resplendent example of how artisans, designers and a determined homeowner can salute the past while honouring the present.
Curry’s home near the Rideau Canal in The Glebe was built about 1909. Back in the late 1990s, after she and her husband, Chuck Shields, had owned the house with its crooked floors, outdated electrical system and cramped kitchen for about 14 years, the dishwasher died.
“So,” she says in a deadpan voice that she’s clearly used many times before in relating the story, “we decided we may as well renovate the whole house.”
The heart of the award-winning renovation — a $430,000 project that included an addition that brought the home to 3,200 square feet and the creation of an airy backyard space — was its faithfulness to the two styles that defined the original home: Arts & Crafts, with its love of elegant, straight lines and functional forms, and Art Nouveau, partial to curves and filigree. The two styles, says Curry, were crossing over in the early 20th century when Edwin LaBeree, a civil engineer involved in such projects as the construction of the nearby Bank Street bridge, built this home.
Curry, a consulting psychologist, scoured the Ottawa marketplace for professionals to preserve and extend that crossover in the renovation. Completed in 2000 and just recently put on the market, the results are stunning.
Deep baseboards and trim, plate rails and “eyebrows” over doors and windows have been preserved or, in the new sections, added to underscore the era of the home. Stained glass, some of it commissioned, a mix of Arts & Crafts and Art Nouveau chandeliers and other light fixtures, a hand-stencilled floor in the dining room: the home brims with rich period detail.
There are wonderful extra touches.
The living room walls and coved ceiling, for instance, have been refinished in stucco antiqo, a millenniums-old technique in which coats of paint in multiple tones are applied with a palette knife to give a swirling, textured surface that suggests Art Nouveau. Melted beeswax is then applied to the surface with a rag and polished, producing a subtle, warm sheen.
To do the work, Curry, who had fallen in love with the effect when she saw it in a small Parisian hotel in the 1970s, tracked down an itinerant French artisan recommended by Wallack Galleries on Bank Street.
“I swear that man was here every day for three straight months,” she says.
For the living room, Curry also sourced an original 19th-century Quebec slate fireplace surround with hand-painted boiserie and Art Nouveau medallions.
In the dining room, artist Helen Todd created hand-cut stencils for the copper-metallic floral detail she applied to the room’s walls. It was a painstaking process, but the Art Nouveau touch of stylized flowers in combination with the Arts & Craftslike straight, dark-pine plate rails and window trim carries the renovation’s theme through the room. Todd also stencilled the lighter-coloured floor, helping create a dining area that’s intimate but with an air of occasion.
Having decided to expand the home, Curry interviewed 13 architects before settling on Linda Chapman to design the rear, two-storey addition. It includes a large family room where Chapman continued details such as transom windows from the original structure.
Upstairs there’s a new, daylightfilled master bath with a claw foot soaker tub and a curving glass-block screen to conceal the toilet. The Art Nouveau-inspired towel racks were one of the first paid commissions for Ottawa designers Urban Keios, says Curry.
The addition also allowed a stunning expansion and updating of the kitchen. For that, Curry and Chapman chose Cina Tite, then working with Ottawa’s Design First Interiors. Engel Construction of Ottawa did the hammer-and-saw work here and elsewhere in the house.
The kitchen’s furniture-like cherry cabinetry trimmed with maple, the sweeping green granite countertop, a pair of wall ovens built into a second, curved block of cabinetry: the design blends the Arts & Crafts/ Art Nouveau theme with functionality.
“We both cook and we entertain a lot,” says Curry. “There’s space for everything here. It shows the artisanal attention to detail of people and how they can really step up their game.”
The home, listed at $1.1 million and being sold because Curry and Shields are moving to Washington, D.C., boasts a motherlode of other thoughtful detail that continues to delight its owners.
“People shouldn’t be fearful of doing renovations, especially if they’re involved,” says Curry. “It’s really the original green approach to homes, instead of just levelling and starting all over.”