House is a touch of Venice in Cordova Bay
Couple incorporates their passion for the Italian city into their island home
The Cordova Bay home of Charles and Victoria Locker was an ordinary subdivision house when they bought it brand new in 1988, but a gradual transformation over the last 25 years has taken it from bland to grand.
“Ever since coming here from England, we have liked this area,” Victoria said. “When we first bought here, we used to have horses coming through our front yard. It was very country and reminded us of the U. K.”
The neighbourhood still has the semi- rural flavour the two love, but there is nothing country bumpkin about the makeover their home has received.
Two decades ago, Charles took a garden landscaping course and since then, he has redeveloped their outdoor environment, not once but several times. He started with roses, then created an English country garden, and more recently added an Oriental theme. The extensive garden has been featured on a local tour, as well as in a five- page spread in a national house and garden magazine.
And the modest 2,100- square- foot home has been evolving too, but in one direction only: toward Venice.
The two have a passion for that atmospheric Italian city with its extraordinary 16th- century art, majestic architecture and canals that are gilded every evening as the sun sets.
When Charles first took her there, Victoria said: “I felt as thought I had stepped into a painting.”
They love the soft light, reflections, palazzos, gondolas and the way the city is awash with romance.
And so, while their house includes influences from around the world, such as tall ceramic vases from the Orient, English antiques, highly polished French armoires and Canadian art, the mood is distinctly rococo with opulent furnishings, silk drapes, carved beds, overflowing vases, lavish mouldings and chandeliers — all deftly mixed with contemporary furniture. “It’s very eclectic,” Charles said. They started their renovation by knocking down walls and opening up big picture windows along the back of the house.
They installed sets of french doors in the kitchen and off the dining room ( which previously had no window at all) to add light and extend the living space.
Where there used to be three small, separate rooms — living, family and dining — there is now one long space, running 52 feet from front to back, defined by arches, heavy mouldings and a coffered ceiling over the dining table.
“It used to feel very confined, like we were living in a dollhouse,” said Charles, who enjoys the new vistas inside.
Closest to the front door is the television sitting area, with an inviting, dark- green leather sofa in front of a Japanese screen decorated with flying cranes.
The three areas are defined by bold stokes of colour, ranging from sunny yellow to rich, deep blue- grey. The eco- friendly Farrow & Ball paints have names like Down Pipe grey, Dorset Cream and Tiger Safari — apparently the colour of the Serengeti grass.
Charles explained how the dark diningroom walls make the space look larger when looking through the three rooms. “It’s an optical illusion,” one that’s heightened by glossy white trim to make the woodwork pop.
When Charles first suggested taking all the walls out, Victoria wondered whether it could be done. “And then when he found this enormous table, I thought: ‘ Can it really work in this small space, would it all be too much?’
“This was just an ordinary little spec house, you see, but we decided to go for it,” and through a clever alchemy of scale, the large furniture makes the little rooms seem not only grander, but larger.
Charles added with a chuckle: “It’s go big or go home.”
The two love to entertain on a grand scale and are famous for hosting cocktail parties for 50 and huge sit- down dinners. They light dozens of candles and set a romantic, old- world scene.
“When we have a dinner party for 45, we move all the furniture into the garage and put round tables everywhere, like a restaurant,” he said. In the summer, they do the same in the garden, with white linens and candelabras.
They have two very different seating areas, at both ends of the long room, and a massive table in the middle that seats 14. It spills into the other areas when fully extended.
The French- style kitchen is all- white because they like that calm, clean look — “I don’t want my kitchen to look like a nightclub,” quipped Charles — and the powder room has a Murano mirror and large painting of Piazza San Marco.
Lining the staircase is a gallery of paintings, leading to a newly created entry into the master suite, via a long hall. Lit by track lighting, it gives their bedroom a gracious entry through another french door. “It feels like a dressing room,” said Victoria, who enhanced the classic feel by adding a Persian carpet, elegant chests of drawers and a dramatic painting.
Charles and Victoria, who moved here in the mid- 1960s from Yorkshire, believe in living the dream. “Our house isn’t big, but we live big,” said Victoria, who jokingly calls her home The Danieli on Sunnygrove after the famous hotel in Venice, a former 14th- century palazzo that overlooks the lagoon. “It’s just an ordinary home, but we like to imagine we’re living off the canal.”