Escarpment Idyll

When Susan and Stuart Ash were ready to turn their weekend retreat into a full-time residence, they went driving around The Blue Mountains to gather ideas. It was on one of those drives where kismet intervened. They fell in love with designer-builder Jacqueline Van Strien’s house, drove in her driveway, and met the perfect person to turn their 175-year-old “basic log cabin” into a stunning stone and log home with plenty of room for living and entertaining, while maintaining the history – and memories – of their beloved cabin in the woods.

The cabin actually started out as two cabins, which the previous owners brought from the Ottawa Valley and joined together on this two-acre property perched on the edge of the Niagara Escarpment off Camperdown Road, surrounded by trees and very private, with an incredible view of Georgian Bay stretching from Christian Island to the Meaford Tank Range.

The Ashes purchased the home in 1998 and used it as a weekend ski chalet, creating lots of family memories over the years even though the cabin lacked conveniences like town water or sewer, cable TV or internet. Retirement approached just as The Blue Mountains was growing into a four-season destination and the Georgian Bay Club opened nearby. The resulting development along Camperdown brought more services to the area, and the Ashes knew they could take advantage of these improvements while still enjoying the privacy of their exclusive oasis in the trees.

“As the area evolved, the house has evolved with it, and we’ve been able to evolve with the house,” says Stuart, who had an illustrious career as an award-winning graphic designer (among many accomplishments, he designed the iconic ‘Centennial leaf’ logo made up of multicoloured triangles to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Canada’s Confederation in 1967). As he prepared to sell his Toronto company, Gottschalk + Ash, he and Susan, herself a former interior designer, set out to transform their rustic hideaway into a home that would take them through the next phase of their journey.

After hiring Van Strien in 2006, they laid out their must-haves. They wanted to reorient the home to capitalize on the view; establish a great room looking out on the Bay, with a majestic two-storey cathedral ceiling; create an open concept between the expanded kitchen, dining room, living room and billiard room; and relocate the master bedroom to the main floor with a fabulous ensuite bathroom, walk-in closet and laundry facilities. All while maintaining the footprint of the original cabin, preserving as much of the log structure and “cabin feel” as possible, and meeting the strict regulations of the Niagara Escarpment Commission (NEC).

“The brilliance of Jacqueline Van Strien was to reconfigure the space accommodating all of these objectives,” says Stuart. “This was achieved within the buildable footprint considering all the zoning and regulatory requirements of the Grey Bruce Escarpment.” 

The existing cabins had a combined footprint of about 1,700 square feet, which the renovation expanded to just over 3,800 square feet above grade. But in spite of more than doubling the square footage, the innovative upgrade preserved the original cabins in-situ – with just the merest alterations to incorporate the additions and achieve the Ashes’ wish list.

The other challenge was combining the couple’s contrasting tastes into one cohesive home. “Stuart’s a modernist and Susan, on the other hand, loves old things. She grew up partly in Vermont and partly in Quebec so she loves old log cabins,” says Van Strien. “The first time I met with them, she said it would really pain her heart to knock it down because of all the history and all of their past that the family spent there. Stuart mentioned just in passing that he likes the tension between old and new, and that is something that intrigues me. So I sat down that evening and drew up the plans.”

She went back the next day to show the couple her vision, which involved preserving the original log cabin and building around it, completely modernizing it with a huge new kitchen, a new ground floor master suite, enlarging the living room with a view out to the Bay, and those cathedral ceilings the couple longed for.

Van Strien’s plan was a hit with the Ashes, and then it was a matter of making it work structurally and adhering to the confines of the NEC’s regulations. Van Strien hired a geotechnical engineer to navigate the NEC regs, and a structural engineer to ensure that removing portions of walls as well as part of the ceiling in the original log cabin wouldn’t compromise structural integrity or load bearing.

“The property was really constrained by steep slopes, so the geotechnical engineer looked at diverting storm water along the property and also making sure that the slopes would remain stable after we built on the property,” recalls Van Strien. “The footprint had to follow the terrain to a certain degree, and the new garage had to be at a higher elevation with all kinds of drainage in the transition area between the two levels, so the ground remains stable and water moves efficiently and safely.”

Entering the somewhat hidden driveway, the detached double-car garage has a coach house feel. The new stone and log façade of the house stretches out below, nestled in the trees with natural gardens Susan put in herself and a promontory at one end looking out over the edge of the Escarpment. The impact is breathtaking but not at all fussy; the house has a sense of belonging to the landscape.

Walking in the front door, one of the first things a visitor sees is the corner of two exterior walls of the original log cabin. These walls have been maintained throughout, so in practically every room you have a view of a log wall. The wall at the Escarpment end has been opened into a rectangular bay window that takes full advantage of the view.

A portion of the original second floor has been removed to create the sought-after vaulted ceiling in the living room, and the Ashes are especially fond of the floor-to-ceiling fireplace, which was recreated using the stone from the cabin’s original fireplace, once situated in the kitchen.
The fireplace stone isn’t the only thing that has been reused; the log section on the exterior of the house uses veneers from the beams that were removed during the renovation.

This attention to detail and preservation give the house a sense of history and a flow that makes it hard to tell where the old house ends and the new sections begin. That’s exactly what Susan was hoping to achieve, and she couldn’t be happier.

“Log cabins talk to you,” she muses as she looks around fondly, taking in the view indoors as well as outdoors. “You feel a calmness. It’s so natural and timeless, and being in the trees it really feels like you’re in the forest. Then, when the leaves go off the trees, we can see all the way over to Meaford one way and Christian Island the other way. It’s a completely different view in the winter.” ❧