770 MILLGROVE SIDE Rd., Millgrove, Ont.<\/p>\n
Asking price: $5,999,000<\/p>\n
Land Size: 52.135 acres<\/p>\n
Annual Property Taxes: $15,335.49 (2026)<\/p>\n
Listing agent: Martinus Geleynse, Corcoran Horizon Realty<\/p>\n
The backstory<\/p>\n
On a rural road north of Hamilton sits a modernist architectural showpiece that uses the landscape to play down its ambitious design.<\/p>\n
In 2013, Wendy and Chris McNally had removed the nonproducing apple trees from a former orchard they owned and discovered what was left on the 50-acre piece of land were many of the tree species \u2013 oak, cherry, walnut \u2013 common to the Carolinian forest. It seemed the perfect place to build a custom home that fit their needs as they approached retirement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the first time we\u2019d built a home from scratch,\u201d said Mrs. McNally, who said in the late 1980s she and her mining engineering husband had bought a lot from a developer, with hopes to get a home with a farmhouse feel. \u201cThey came up with a plan, but you didn\u2019t have as much say in what you were getting. There was constrictions working with a developer like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luckily, this time they had a nephew who was just beginning his career in architecture and who leapt at the challenge to create a home that incorporates ancient styles, natural materials, modern sustainable technology and fits within the land. \u201cI had been working since 2009, but it\u2019s a pretty significant project at that point in my career and also for the firm,\u201d said Graham McNally, one of the principals of Toms + McNally Design. <\/p>\n
Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Graham McNally spent a lot of time figuring out how to organize the space to best suite his aunt and uncle’s needs.Tyler Davies\/Tyler Davies<\/p>\n From the outside, the result appears to be a modest single-storey ranch bungalow, but when viewed from the pool deck or gardens feels like a much grander \u2013 even palatial \u2013 two-level manse. Seen from above, the floor plan zigs and zags, but it\u2019s all aimed at livability.<\/p>\n \u201cWith subdivision houses there\u2019s so little consideration for how people live; it\u2019s all about efficiency for the builder,\u201d said Mr. McNally, who spent a lot of time early on figuring out how his aunt and uncle wanted to spend their time with their still-growing family. \u201cThis house, you can tell it\u2019s sort of funny shaped, but it\u2019s all organized around that idea about the way people were going to live in it and how it facilitates their life.\u201d<\/p>\n The house today<\/p>\n At the end of the long driveway is a paved courtyard that squares off the space between the attached three-car garage that extends at a 90-degree angle from the main living space.<\/p>\n The formal foyer at the opposite end of the square collects visitors into the bottom corner of the L-shaped living space. Directly ahead is the guest bedroom and primary suite on the short side of the L, and to the left is a long hallway that connects to the great room, dining room, and kitchen. On the other side is an office facing the courtyard and a spacious mud-room\/laundry room off the garage. A hallway culminates in what the McNallys call the \u201chearth room,\u201d a den with a large limestone fireplace mantel wall just off the kitchen.<\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n An office an office on the main floor faces the courtyard.Tyler Davies\/Tyler Davies<\/p>\n But the heart of the building is that enormous central volume that is double-height and contains the great room, dining room and kitchen. These spaces are separated by walls that don\u2019t extend all the way to the Douglas-fir clad ceiling that seems to float above the whole space, levitating on a cushion of light from the clerestory windows that wrap around on all four sides.<\/p>\n \u201cGraham did an absolutely marvellous job of giving us the room sizes that we needed for when everyone was there, but still making it feel like an intimate home,\u201d said Mrs. McNally. \u201cYou didn\u2019t feel like you were in a big barn of a room when there were just the two of us.\u201d<\/p>\n These clerestory windows, which tuck under the eaves of the home, are a feature of mid-century modern design, but their origins go back to premodern societies in Egypt and Crete, copied down through the ages in Rome and in churches and cathedrals in Europe. They flood the home with light, and on the side facing the old orchard they are met with banks of window walls and doors that open onto the balcony that runs the length of the home above the lower-level patio walkout.<\/p>\n \u201cGraham was the one that guided us to what the house became; he had the vision,\u201d said Mrs. McNally. \u201cWe were comfortable with it as long as it had warm elements like the wood; we\u2019re not chrome and glass kind of people. We like real things.\u201d<\/p>\n