The majestic fir, hemlock, cedar and redwood trees leading to the Giroday/Lepore abode are naturally impressive, but once you arrive it’s a much humbler detail that catches your eye: the brick.
There aren’t many homes in Roberts Creek featuring brick-clad exteriors, but then again, this is not your average dwelling. It’s housing a family of designers and is consequently full of thoughtful, creative and simple surprises.
At the front door, six-year-old Johnny happily busts out a few skateboard tricks before dinner, while his mom, Lisa Giroday keeps a watchful eye from below. The simple brick and grey landing offers a calm transition to the polished concrete steps and floors on the main and open living level.
“I’ve always loved brick as a material choice,” explains Lisa. “Conceptually I was interested in the idea of bringing the outside in, in terms of material, continuity and form.”
When the family first bought this property, they were planning to renovate the existing older beach cottage. However, once they drilled down into the ever-increasing budget and renovation details—just to bring the original home up to code, let alone improve it—building a new home from scratch made a lot more sense.
The end result is a 2,200-square foot custom home that is boldly inspired by a Scandinavian-styled barn, evidenced by a rough cardboard model the family still playfully passes around.
Lisa and Tyler (Ty) Lepore started the original concept with local custom builders and Ty’s brothers Marlin and Ryan Hanson of Hanson Land and Sea and then brought in September Architecture’s Brendan Callander and Shiloh Sukkau to fine tune the design. Despite having a clear vision and both being designers by trade—Ty is a metal fabricator and Lisa a landscape designer —the couple wanted the benefit of architectural design rigour.
It’s a decision they don’t regret.
One of the key features the architects helped them with is the windows – both in scale and shape. Originally conceived as hugely oversized, the final glazing design features smaller and slim windows that fit more cohesively into the home while beautifully framing the landscape.
At the heart of the main floor, the kitchen, island and dining area ground the zone and draw the family together. Adjoining is an expansive chill-out space with the primary bedroom plus master bath also set on the ground floor.
A well-utilized mud room and powder room round out this level. Back in the centre, inviting glass doors lead to the outdoor brick terrace and living space.
The kitchen, designed by Lisa, is spacious and striking in its simplicity, the main feature being the mill-grade stainless steel island and counter tops with inset sink. Conceived and fabricated by Ty, the unpolished finish of the steel manages to be both unpretentious and sophisticated.
In addition to the countertops, Lisa’s favourite kitchen details include a pull-out “appliance garage,” the builtin cookbook shelf in the island, and a handy bar with fridge.
In the primary bedroom and throughout the home, deep fir interior windowsills that read more like boxes, have been made possible by the width of the insulated concrete forms (ICF) used in the home’s construction. The blocks offer superb insulation for the home and the sills provide places for the kids to perch, plus display family mementos and vignettes.
Sustainable design is also addressed by the structural insulated panels used on the second storey and roof, a solar bank to feed power back into the hydro grid, plus two 1,300-gallon underground water tanks that collect rainwater for the gardens.
Outdoors, part of the living space is fenced, both for deer protection and to be kid safe as well as to provide runs for the family’s two pups.
“Being a city export, and as a landscape designer I wanted a plantforward exterior, but deer are BIG here!” notes Lisa. “A fully fenced area gives us peace of mind and I also love it as a design detail.”
Many of these inevitable design challenges made the house and landscape more pleasing by completion.
Their lead builder, Derek Hunter (Hanson Land and Sea) is also credited with much of the home’s success as he too became invested in the couple’s ideas, values and dilemmas.
“He understood our aesthetic and was willing to work closely with us to discover ways we could do things better,” says Ty.
Ty worked diligently on many of the special features both in and outside the house, including the interior metal stairwell railings, the wraparound pergola and unique steel window boxes. The robust window frames were crafted once the cost of framing the windows in traditional cedar lumber was understood. Ty figured he could build the metal frames for a similar price if he did the fabrication labour himself. He then went on to custom craft the gutters, downspouts and other special metal drainage details on the house.
In the bathrooms, Ty worked closely with his father, John Lepore, to meticulously tile the walls, floor and surrounds—a project that literally took months. The slim vertically set tile is a standout feature in what might otherwise be a more utilitarian space.
“We splurged on the tile!” admits Lisa.
Not surprisingly, the kids – each with a built-in treehouse perch— spend a lot of time musing in their lightfilled bedrooms, where the walls and spaces are plastered with arts and crafts.
“I really love my room, and the ladder!” notes nine-year-old Wren.
The kids’ lofts, accessed by ladders, are adjoining for future consideration of more communal play space. For now, the comfy TV-zone adjacent to the bedrooms works nicely. There is also an office/guest room on this floor.
The outdoors and garden areas are a big draw for all members of the family and include a budding food garden at the back on the highest bench of the 1.2 acre property. There is already one greenhouse in place and another in the works and even the storage areas are cladded with trellises for beans and peas. “I really like the garden,” notes Wren. “It’s just so satisfying to have stuff to pick like parsley, raspberries, strawberries and garlic.”
The remaining outdoor living spaces are very naturalized in their plantings and surrounded by forest.
“My style is very much influenced by the natural landscape so I use mostly native, drought tolerant, high texture plants,” notes Lisa. “My colour palette is very green, muted, although I’m starting to introduce a more saturated, striking colour palette with flowers.”
The Roberts Creek community also suits this family perfectly.
“There’s a sense of pride in the neighbourhood and school and it makes a huge difference in the general vibe of how you live,” says Ty, who was born on the Sunshine Coast.
Building a home capturing the creative spirit of this family hasn’t been easy, but that’s exactly how they expected it to be.
“It’s such a privilege to be able to build a home – you can’t be lazy in it, when there are potential problems that can be avoided,” says Ty. “We spent months looking at the model, the floor plan, the budget for example, and sketching constantly.”
Some features fell right into place, while others were hard won.
“The brick probably took the longest,” says Lisa. “And we love it.”
