Norbert Gilmore, 75, retired to Victoria two years ago and left behind a “glorious garden,” a big home and a big career in Montreal as one of Canada’s premier experts in HIV, AIDS and Hepatitis treatment and research.
He now enjoys a more salubrious climate, urban lifestyle and stunning location in a 1,200-square-foot condo that hangs over Victoria’s Inner Harbour.
“If you are standing on the balcony and fall, you’re fish food,” joked Gilmore, who can hardly believe the views. “I actually have friends who ask if they can come over just to watch the sunsets from my balcony.”
Gilmore’s condo is in the Victoria Regent Hotel & Suites on Wharf Street.
“I came here not because I’m failing, but because I’m frailing,” said the engaging scholar who retired here because of advancing macular degeneration as well as severe back and leg problems.
The latter was due to a fall down an elevator shaft in 1999 while sharing an art studio with two female friends in a decrepit old building. He was a healthy 57-year-old when it happened, but the six-metre drop smashed his knee and hip, which needed rebuilding. Twice.
“My surgeon learned some new swear words during the operations, and it was a pretty rocky road for a while, but I use trekking poles now.
“You’ve got to keep working and going, you can’t let those things get in the way,” said Gilmore, whose career included merging the clinics of two big teaching hospitals, pioneering the fight against AIDS and championing human rights.
“You achieve things by being upbeat,” he said, and clearly none of his ailments have curbed his enthusiasm for life or art-collecting.
His condo resembles a contemporary gallery with its open plan, gleaming floors, walls ablaze with bright abstract expressionist art, antique tables, chests lined with Inuit sculpture — and plastic chairs.
“I initially looked at moving to the States, but the health premiums would have been $30,000 to $40,000 a year,” so he came here after downsizing “mercilessly.”
“I realized one day that every piece of furniture, every painting, every sculpture, every bottle of balsamic vinegar that I wanted to keep, would have to be moved here,” so he excised the excess, including all his whisky and wines.
“My mover said he didn’t want to have Beaujolais crystals forming on the drive out to Victoria anyway,” said the animated Gilmore.
He loves his spare new space — “if you add too much it looks like a jumble” — and juxtaposes antiques against fantastically bold, modernist art.
A collector since his student days, he once went to an auction and got into a “furious bidding war” over 12 paintings, all boxed together.
“The price went up, and up, and up and eventually I got the lot for $200,” he said with a twinkle.
“Turned out I was bidding against an artist who wanted to paint over the canvases,” but Gilmore’s discerning eye paid off as several of the works are now worth $5,000 and more.
He is also drawn to Inuit art, especially shamanistic and transformational works such as one with the head of a bird, claw of a bear and tail of a fish. He bought many at auction during René Lévesque’s separatist era, when people left Montreal.
Gilmore creates his own sculptures too, from found objects — a lump of cement, a bent hunk of car metal, a nob of crushed and burned foil.
Back in med school, he once made a triptych out of psychedelic relics from the ‘60s. “For a joke, I saved a piece of hash, some pills of speed, some acid and framed them up, hoping to get notorious. I was going to make a sign that read: In case of too much reality, break glass.”
In his living room are two green leather armchairs from the 1950s, but at his dining table he likes plastic chairs. “I hate sitting in old, ladder-back chairs. These air chairs were made in Italy by British designer Jasper Morrison.”
Made of polypropylene with glass fibres added for stability, they are comfortable and stackable. He has them in green and white on his patio, and a multi-coloured tower of them in a cupboard ready for dinner parties at his antique pine table.
Gilmore mixes antique oak from England with pine from Quebec and doesn’t mind pieces that have been slightly abused — as long as they were well made.
“This coffee table was a trashy mess, but I thought it was cool so I cleaned it up and covered it with a sheet of thick glass,” to preserve the distressed marks.
After purchasing the condo, while still in Montreal, Gilmore asked friend and interior designer Brenda Inkster to update it for him. He loves her taste and just said: “I trust you.”
One of the first things she did was rip out the old carpeting and install engineered walnut. Laid at an angle, to expand sight lines, she began the installation in the kitchen, so it flowed from there and didn’t look like an add-on.
She enhanced views by removing large, heavy valances that held sheers, blackouts and decorative drapes on three tracks.
“That added about two feet of space,” she said, noting all the carpentry was done by Jon Jarvis, “one of the most competent and honest people I know.”
In the kitchen, she removed a wall and door into the dining area, added quartz countertops, new appliances, turned an old broom closet into a swanky pantry and took existing cabinets to the ceiling, making it look higher.
“If Norbert didn’t have mobility issues we’d have had a folding step ladder and storage up there, but in this case it’s just been closed in,” said Inkster, who is affiliated with InsideOut Homestore on Store Street.
Inkster added: “Norbert lives to have parties. He has people for dinner every second night and is a wonderful cook, so we did all the changes with that in mind.”
Gilmore describes his style of cooking as “advanced bachelor” and jokes that Costco forced him to learn to cook, “because they have such large quantities I had to use them up, so I’d have friends in and make fish pies or beef bourguignon.
“Cooking relaxes me and keeps me busy because I do miss work, my colleagues and my friends in Montreal,” said the Gilmore, who has a doctorate of pharmacology from the University of London, a degree in medicine from the University of Vermont and was director of McGill University Health Centre’s Chronic Viral Illness Service.
In addition to his international work, he chaired both Health Canada’s National Advisory Committee on AIDS and the expert committee on AIDS for the Correctional Service of Canada. He also co-founded the Canadian Foundation for AIDS research and was its president, among many other leadership positions.
“I was there at the beginning, when AIDS was a life sentence with 100 per cent mortality. Our health care was a refuge for people then, because we had a great team and knew how to look after people.”
His home has become his refuge now and a magnet for friends, old and new.
Gilmore said his reno was a success because it was based on comfort, not investment potential.
“Living in Victoria is wonderful. It feels like a small town, but there are immense numbers of things to do. And people are very active here, which I find therapeutic,” he said gleefully.
“Right now, I can see a fellow out in the harbour doing … rolls in his kayak.”
Regent Hotel & Suites perched over water
Designed by Sam Bawlf, the mixed-use Victoria Regent Hotel & Suites was finished in 1980. Built on pilings, it stands at the edge, and, in some places, over the waters of the Inner Harbour.
Condo owners can enjoy extra services such as a breakfast buffet and housekeeping for an additional fee, while full-time security and concierge service are included, said hotel general manager Earl Wilde.
The building has 57 suites of which 34 are used as hotel rooms. The structure was repainted recently and new windows, compression sliding doors and guardrails added for $4.5 million, said Wilde.
Gilmore paid $427,000 for his suite and spent $50,000 in renos. His share of recent exterior improvements amounted to $70,000, however units such as his are now selling for far more than he paid in 2013.