For the wife, in particular, being able to entertain well was vital and Travis and Rhiannon worked to make several rooms around the house attuned to the movement between daily life and lively gatherings. In the sunroom, with its cedar-clad walls and stone floors, fully enclosed for all-season enjoyment, the couple enjoy quiet dinners or linger over games at a charming corner table. The kitchen, at once classic and highly functional, centres on a very generously proportioned marble-topped island. Once, there had been plans for a breakfast table, but they opted for stools at the island instead. ‘She loves to host dinner parties and said their friends are in the kitchen with [them] while cooking,’ Rhiannon recalls. ‘So she wanted a kitchen where she can still be part of what’s going on in the rest of the house too.’
Simple square and rectangular panelling adds visual interest to these hallway walls painted in the designers’ custom paint mix inspired by Benjamin Moore’s Linen White. The stairs are made from reclaimed, fumed and oxidised antique white oak sourced from Baba Flooring. A custom chair upholstered in ‘Verrieres’ by French heritage and luxury textile brand Brunschwig and Fils.
REID LAMBSHEAD
The dining room, by contrast, remains quiet and muted, a serene counterpoint to the convivial bustle the kitchen invites. The walls are covered in a subtly textured green grasscloth that brings a sense of envelopment and intimacy to the room, which is now perfectly suited to a relaxed approach to dining.
‘It was nice because they trusted us and said, “here’s what we think, how we think we want to live. Does that make sense to you guys?”’ says Rhiannon of the process. ‘We were able to work really collaboratively on making sure that the floor plan made sense for them now and in the future’. When it came to the interiors scheme, once again the clients placed their trust in Rhiannon to carry the Georgian sensibility of the exterior inside in a way that felt warm and lived-in, rather than museum-like. ‘I knew we had a very strong vision of what we wanted the house to feel like, and that was an old, charming, layered house that felt collected.’ says Rhiannon. ‘If we are going to put something in the house, whether it’s the floor or the furniture, we want it to be of quality that’s going to last, and for it to feel like it’s been here for a while.’
With this in mind, 200 year old white oak floor boards were sourced from Baba flooring. Rhiannon also scoured the antique shops of Toronto and found an antique dining table by Donald Phyfe, the Scottish cabinet maker whose creations once graced distinguished East Coast homes in the 18th Century. Heritage brands were consulted for upholstery fabrics that brought some of the charm of the English country house to Ontario. Having returned from Toronto with little more than their clothes, bankers’ boxes and a few personal belongings, the clients also invited Rhiannon to curate a collection of antiques, trinkets and artworks on their behalf.
What the clients moved into in 2023 was a house that trust had built. A significant one for Rhiannon and Travis, the project was not without its challenges. ‘There was a big push to get everything done before the winter because it can be hard to get anything done [otherwise],’ says Travis. Working with international companies, adjustments had to be made for pieces to work in a Canadian home, including the commissioning of a lot of custom backplates for lighting. ‘Our running joke was: why make it simple when you can make it complicated!’ Rhiannon laughs. But the attention to detail and insistence on quality craftsmanship has paid off. The result is a beautiful home with a welcoming atmosphere, that in a short space of time has acquired much of the quiet assuredness of an older property. A charming, confident addition to this historic lakeside community.