ETOILE A STAR IN BURNABY
AT BRENTWOOD-AREA PROJECT, ALL HOMES WILL BE SOUGHT-AFTER CORNER UNITS
It’s no wonder residential corner units are so coveted among homebuyers, considering all their possibilities. When only one wall is shared with a neighbour, two walls carry the potential for large windows, more natural light and great views.
An entire building of corner units sounds ideal — and that ideal becomes real at Etoile, Millennium Development Group’s highrise project in Burnaby’s Brentwood neighbourhood.
Adele Rankin offers some decor advice to those who purchase at Etoile: sit back in a low-profile chair and embrace the view in your corner unit.
“Ensure you keep your furniture low profiled and simple. Keeping the backs of chairs and sofas on the more modern and lower height, or scale, ensures that the first thing you are drawn to is the outside,” says Rankin, a principal of CHIL Design, who worked with Millennium on the project’s interiors.
“The furniture should really complement this scenario, not fight it, so keeping lines clean, embellishments minimal and a more neutral palette allows the large corner patios to be the star.” With Whole Foods on one side of Lougheed and a spacious shopping mall in the works on the Brentwood Town Centre site, the community is transforming into a transportation and shopping destination — a magnet for those who like urban conveniences nearby. With all their consumer and transit needs fully met, homeowners can look to their interiors for details and finishes that entice them to stay in and relax, away from the bustle.
CHIL Design used clean, sophisticated finishes to draw the eye to the bold, striated marble look in a bathroom’s shower area, and to the horizontal patterns of the grey backsplash in the kitchens. “In residential designs of this magnitude, you always look for where you can make the biggest impact and how that can be a fresh yet timeless look,” she says.
“For us, the obvious choices are the kitchens and bathrooms, where you can provide a unique look through the largest surfaces, which tend to be the walls.”
CHIL’s award-winning design portfolio includes projects in Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, North and South America, to hotel brands such as Shangri-La, Hilton, Fairmont, Marriott, and Four Seasons. That exposure to the tastes and lifestyles in such diverse populations informs CHIL Design’s insights in every project, including Etoile, Rankin says.
“We have been very fortunate that our work and design has allowed us to travel and experience other countries and cultures. We absorb these influences, take the time to learn what is important to each region in which we work. We are able to understand different demographics quickly and what may be more important to some areas and not so much to others.”