"Home Work
Combining work and family life, a big-city art conservator moves to the country.."
"All the blasting had been done, and truckloads of rock carted away. Framing material for the foundation was on site, along with the crew. But without an antique captain's chair- collected and refinished by his mother- Andrew Todd's house surely would have ended up in the wrong place.

Sitting at home on Bowen Island, just a couple of miles off the coast of Horseshoe Bay & North Vancouver, Todd remembers the construction crew had started to build the forms for the foundation when the contractor asked where exactly he wanted the house to face. Todd sat down in the chair in the area he knew he wanted it when the house was finished. He had in mind a straight line of view from the chair beside the heater, across the room, down the hallway, out the window and up the driveway where he could see his daughter getting on and off the school bus. Turn to the right and he could look down into the living room, to the left out the French doors, across the deck and into the trees. "That's exactly the view I have today from that chair," Todd says.

The view also skirts the studio, a separate building, where Todd does a lot of the research and some of his work as a conservator.

Work started on the 2,000-square-foot house in October 2000. Todd, his wife Heather and daughter Neela moved in July 2001. But prior to construction, the lot, slightly less than one acre, posed a few problems for architect Keith Jakobsen of Jakobsen Associates of Vancouver.

It was a rocky site with a steep slope, and Todd wanted a more conventional home- living area on the main floor and bedrooms upstairs. "They didn't want a strange, modern house with different levels going down the rock slope. And they wanted a crawl space underneath it, as opposed to drilling and putting posts in the rock. A semi-heated crawl space makes it a warmer, drier home."

There was also the matter of the trees. The Todds wanted as many as possible kept. So Todd and Jakobsen walked the property,

flagging the trees with surveyor's tape until they found the best configuration.

There was a good-sized cliff in the middle of the property, which was a problem. But it was also part of the appeal of the property, being typical Gulf Island rocks and trees. "They had to do a lot of blasting, but they were a really professional crew," says Todd.

Prior to the move to Bowen, the Todds lived in downtown Vancouver. They chose Bowen Island because, though it is close to the city, it also has the best of country living and the ocean. "There were some nice views, and when we started the project Andrew and Heather told me they wanted the best spaces to be outdoor spaces," Jakobsen said. That led to the idea of having the deck covered, so they could use it in the transition seasons, when it's raining.

The other problem for Jakobsen was a house next door, looking down on the Todd's site. To ensure privacy, Jakobsen minimized the windows on that side of the house, concentrating the biggest windows on the best views.

In style, the house is definitely "West Coast", with an Arts and Crafts feel. Todd had spent some time at Mt. Hood, where he admired the parks department buildings built after the Depression. It was the kind of country style he liked.

Built with wood framing on a solid foundation, the home has a highly efficient hot water furnace as well as wood heat, adding to the coziness. The stone in the entranceway is carried on around the fireplace in the living room, and the rest of the main floor has reclaimed old pine flooring. Nine-foot ceilings in the dining room and kitchen, with 11 foot ceilings in the living room, enhance the feeling of spaciousness because Jakobsen convinced them to build the living room two feet lower down the slope. And spanning the width of the house between the kitchen and living room, in deference to Todd's penchant for restoring old monuments, is a huge wood beam salvaged from Ballantine pier in downtown Vancouver.

The upstairs includes a guest bedroom, large bathroom with a replica claw-foot tub, Neela's room, and the master bedroom, which also has large, south-facing windows.

Houses are always considered to be works in progress, and though the house and studio will inevitably change over time, the views and the environment will be preserved. And the captain's chair will stay right where it belongs, by the heater, with the best view in the house.

Just the way Andrew Todd saw it in his mind."
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