Second home by the beach for Calgarians
Active Calgary family builds their dream destination, with a focus on fun, down by the bay near Black Creek
Sunbathing on the shores of Saratoga Bay, just north of Comox, this new house is a dreamy, relaxed home-away-from-home for a seriously active Calgary family, whose members enjoy high-energy sports in the great outdoors, as well as entertaining and competitive games inside. It's a house full of fun and youthful vitality, from the pool table upstairs (soon to be joined by ping-pong and air-hockey tables) to the kayaks and paddleboards outside.
The soft furniture has slipcovers for easy washing, the kitchen is large enough for the whole gang to get stirred up, and there is even a bunkroom where eight kids or adults can spend the night on extra-long twin beds. No reading under the covers here. The bunks have LED lights that swivel and cubbies fitted with phone chargers. Underneath are storage drawers and across the front are rolling ladders that glide with the tap of a finger. Ca sc ad ian wood tech built the whole room, with shiplap detail and components from Richelieu Hardware.
This is the second home of Colleen and Terry Falkenberg, and their two teen children, but it is swiftly becoming their No. 1 get-up-and-go lifestyle destination.
Colleen spotted the property a dozen years ago while visiting a client down the street. (She and her husband are co-founders of a full-service brokerage firm, Stephen Avenue Securities Inc., in Calgary.)
“The crazy story is, I came to this property and sat on the same log for three days in a row. I thought it was absolute heaven. I phoned my husband and said: ‘I really think we should buy it’ and he said: ‘If you like it that much, go for it.”
He didn’t see it for a year and half, but luckily, he loved it too, even though it was “no screaming deal,” as they bought at the height of the market in 2006.
“We are totally thrilled with the house and it is heartbreaking every time we have to leave. It is our second home now, but we plan to retire there,” she said.
The plans for their new home started when they sketched out some ideas for a Hamptons-style beach house.
“Colleen’s vision came from the movie Something’s Gotta Give. It was a great movie with a great house in it,” said Terry, who gave their sketches to a designer in Canmore, Loren Harms at Living Design.
“His homes have a decidedly alpine look,” Terry said.
“He can’t help himself because of the setting he’s in, and we did talk about timber frame, initially. But then we settled on this more East Coast style and involved Victoria-based Jenny Martin and Julia Estey, who helped us convert it into what you see today.”
Big beams and vaulted ceilings are still part of the high style in the games room and children’s bedrooms upstairs, but the main floor ceilings are deeply coffered and colours are soft cream and robin’s egg blue, rather than west coast cedar.
“I wanted our house to be reflective of where we are located,” said Colleen, who noted its relaxed style is a far cry from their 1912 Arts and Crafts home in Calgary.
The owners love the location and water views, but they also like the four to five direct flights a day from Calgary to Comox — only 75 minutes and then just a 20-minute drive to their house.
Their teenage children are keen on the house, too, and enjoy inviting friends, as do the grownups.
Colleen has had her book club to visit and her yoga group, and all the women enjoyed the feeling of a happy flashback to childhood sleepovers, although this time, they slipped into bunks after sipping wine and dips in the ocean.
Colleen said the project was fun from start to finish. “Julia made the whole process so much less stressful for me. We had a great working relationship.”
Terry said the only real challenge was conforming to regional regulations that required they raise the lot by 1.5 metres. “The house next door is on stilts and we didn’t want to do that so we brought in rock fill and tapered it down to the road at the front and ocean, to make it look natural.”
The owners, who were interviewed in Calgary, love their new kitchen and the fact there’s room to host lots of friends and causal dinners. “It is very much a community out there in Black Creek with neighbours and friends getting together for shared meals. And everybody here in Calgary is very happy to be invited out, too.”
In addition to the bunkroom, the home has three bedrooms, one for each of the kids, three full bathrooms and two half baths.
And the laid back, coastal look is evident inside and out.
The exterior is clad in cedar shingles with a transparent stain, which will weather over the years but in the meantime, helps the home look as if it’s been there for years, said the designer.
All the windows and doors are custom made and floors look like bleached driftwood. The home is full of custom woodwork from its coffered ceiling, to kitchen banquette, built-in sideboards and cabinets in the living and games rooms.
Because the ceilings are high on both floors, many of the lighting fixtures are elongated too, to help fill the space, explained Estey.
The games room takes up much of the middle of the top floor and includes a large wall of built in cabinets,
“We wanted to tie it in with the living room and bring that traditional feeling upstairs, so it has the same concept,” said the designer.
She added the bar has a dishwasher, small sink, bar fridge and a tremendous vaulted ceiling envisioned by the Canmore designer, who loves timber frame homes.
“The owners wanted their home to be very light and bright and they wanted a navy blue range,” but elsewhere, the colours are soft cream, pale blue and natural linen.
The dining room has rattan chairs on one side and two large benches on the other. “It’s definitely for sharing and getting people closer together,” Estey said, adding everything is slip covered for easy care.
She said the clients were tremendous to work with, and the project went smoothly even though they live in Calgary. “We emailed a lot.”
The home has garnered three CARE award nominations, for best traditional bathroom, best master suite over 600 square feet and best residential interior for its size. The awards take place tonight and the event has been a sellout for weeks.
The Construction Achievements and Renovations of Excellence (CARE) awards have been in existence for 27 years on Vancouver Island and every year the standards rise, said Casey Edge.
“That’s not because of government standards. These are standards created by contractors in partnership with clients,” said the executive director of the Victoria Residential Builders Association.
He said builders and contractors are using more and more natural materials and not just aiming for high-energy efficiency, but also environmentally friendly construction.
“And programs like Built Green have done far more to advance responsible environmental construction than anything the government has done.”
Edge said the CARE awards demonstrate and celebrate these advances. He also noted projects are taking longer because of a shortage of trades and slow approval processes.
“A lot of government obstruction adds extra expense. The government wails about the high cost of housing, but it is one of the largest contributors to cost and [slow] flow.”
The shortage of trades is because we are still in the midst of a major boom: “In an average year we do a little over 2,000 new house and project starts. Last year, we had 3,800.”
Edge said that’s because boomers are downsizing, while Gen X-ers and millennials are getting into the market. Millennials are projected to surpass the baby boomers’ demographic as the largest generation in North America.
He said all this was predicted 20 years ago in David Foot’s book, Boom, Bust and Echo, which looked at the importance and implications of demographics in forecasting and preparing for the future.