It has been called “probably the most desirable Art Deco house in the municipality,” by local heritage consultant Stuart Stark, and the Canadian Art Deco society gave it a five-star rating, implying its preservation and protection should be of the highest priority.
It was built in 1946, in the era of Route 66, jump blues songs such as Let the Good Times Roll and Choo Ch’Boogie, but the closest it gets to rock and roll these days is the outcrop on which it stands.
The current owners may not be into boogie, but Barbara and David Adams appreciate its rare beauty, and recently completed a sensitive renovation that includes improvements to the interior, garden and patios.
When they first saw it, they had no plans to move, but some house-hunting friends asked them to come along for the viewing. The friends passed up the house, but the Adamses were seduced by the stunning water views and groovy design.
“The house looked like a 1940s gas station,” joked Barbara, but she liked the vibe and being a visual person (a jewelry designer, former art teacher and Oak Bay inaugural arts laureate) she saw the potential.
David thought the house was “pretty funky and I didn’t know what the hell we’d do with it.”
But they have since transformed the
3,300-square-foot home into an eclectic mix of old and new, classic and contemporary.
The wiring had been upgraded and the compact kitchen redone by previous owners, but they added new appliances and artworks.
The lower level needed work and here they created an art studio. The beamed ceiling in the rec room inspired Barbara to transform it into a French cottage-style master suite.
An attached garage became a dressing room, closet and en-suite while outside a double garage was built for a regular car plus Barbara’s tiny Fiat.
The living room is 23 feet long and didn’t have a single light, David said, noting there were a couple of wall plugs and outlets on the mantel. “I don’t know how many pot lights we put in the living room, dining room, kitchen and den,” he said.
They also turned a main floor bedroom into a den, complete with a wide gas fireplace and bookcases where the closet used to be. It’s David favourite room.
Barbara loves the living room, although she tends not to draw the curtains on the large curved wall. “If we close them, the room looks like a theatre and you wonder who’s coming on stage.”
But she appreciates the room for its flexibility.
“When we have a big dinner party, we push the sofas back to the walls and bring the dining table in here, which we extend with several leaves. The dining room sits only six comfortably, but we can have 12 when the table opens out — it’s huge.”
The landmark modernist house was built by previous owner and designer F. E. Smith in the Art Moderne style — a later development of the Art Deco era, Stuart Stark explained.
“There are few of these homes in Greater Victoria. It’s too bold a style for many people,” he said, adding the curved walls, flat roof and bold windows distinguish the house style as one shared with industrial design after the Second World War.
“The rocky setting provides a contrast with the precise architectural forms, while the generous, curved sweep of the concrete stairs gives an attractive theatrical touch to the house.” He noted the unique home was nearly lost to redevelopment in 2005, but luckily was saved along with another Art Moderne house next door, and the two now form a small enclave of modernist design from the mid 20th century.
Many such homes used to have exterior neon lights and this was no exception.
A strip of blue neon used to trace the overhanging flat eaves, highlighting its streamlined look, but it was removed. The Adamses retained the neon street number sign as a relic of the past.
It was something of a surprise for David to find himself in a house such as this, after growing up in a traditional Toronto home from the 1930s.
His mother was editor and publisher of the Canadian Collector Magazine and president of the Canadian Society of Decorative Art, while his grandfather was a “great collector of furniture, art and silver.
“But there has always been that dichotomy between Barbara and me. She likes modern, but I don’t.”
The result is an eclectic marriage of European and Canadian, historic and modern art.
“I now know you can blend antiques with modern, such as Barbara’s contemporary pieces and my favourite 16th-century religious scenes.”
This fact came home several years ago when he attended a fascinating show at the Winnipeg Art Gallery that exhibited Canadian historical works next to fabulously far-out modern pieces.
“You walked along a wall of contemporary art and suddenly a painting by one of the Group of Seven would draw your eye. And in the middle of the paintings were pieces of very fine old silver. And it all worked. It was wonderful.”
Some antiques in their home are from David’s family and Barbara said they have also collected many works along the way, at art shows and auctions. “It is not the first marriage for either of us, so we both had a lot of stuff to begin with too.”
Barbara concurs they have totally different taste, but says they never buy anything unless they both agree on it.
One of her favourite finds was an Italian antique pine bed that she spotted at an auction: “I told David I liked it and he said: You’ve got to be kidding. It had ugly hot pink plush on the back and David thought I’d gone crazy.”
He put in a very low bid and when they got it she had Gabriel Ross reupholster it in embroidered silk for the new master bedroom, where it looks grand.
Like the jewelry she makes, which combines everything from old stones, crystals and lava to modern metal alloys and huge handfuls of elastic bands, Barbara likes a home that’s full of contrast.
And the layers and textures are obvious the moment a visitor wanders up the front path, past tall spikey grasses, over a bridge, past low groundcover, pools and garden art created by Illarion Gallant.
“We live in every room in the house, and every patio outside too,” Barbara said, explaining that as the sun moves round the house, so do they. “We love the light, the sun, the garden and the tall grasses. I’m not a lawn person.”