What’s it like living in the oldest house in Cowichan Valley?
“Wonderful,” says artist Jennifer Lawson, who loves the charming cottage that perches on a bluff overlooking the water, where it is saturated with light and soft sea breezes.
Small wonder that a watercolourist would want to live here, amidst the ever-changing pastel scenery and passing parades of wildlife.
“I look over the river from my studio and see the autumn-spangled trees reflected in the water and I realize this place is more than anything I could have visualized,” said Lawson. “It’s absolutely stunning.”
Her husband, Michael O’Brian, had a less romantic view initially — he worried when they first bought the property because the building is almost 150 years old. “But although I’ve had to replace some things and done some winterizing, it is very solidly built.”
It will always be a challenging project, even for an experienced woodworker like O’Brian, precisely because of that sturdy construction.
“It’s tough to renovate around logs…. The walls are established and you can’t just open up major sections without structural difficulty. Things like electricity and plumbing have to fit into the chinking between the logs, or in partition walls.”
A cabinet maker for 35 years, O’Brian’s talent is visible in scores of local projects, such as the millwork and finishing he did on the bar of the Irish Times pub, the tasting bar he created at Unsworth Vineyards in Duncan, or in many custom homes on the lower Island and Gulf Islands.
But working on an antique home is a different story.
The massive logs, hidden behind plaster and exterior siding, vary in size from 14-by-eight to 16-by-eight-inches thick and the dovetailed corners are locked together in a classic, Scandinavian-style.
“They broad-axed two faces of the logs to flatten them, then dovetailed the joints in a way that pulls them together as the weight comes down. The logs were then chinked with plaster,” he said.
Lawson notes that when people visit her studio, they often end up gazing at the giant beams, marvelling at the construction.
The house perches on a solid granite bluff that’s shaded by well-established oak trees and elms, and is a riot of geraniums, nasturtiums, climbing roses, lilacs and sweet peas in warm months.
Not only is it the oldest house in the region, it’s also the second-oldest building of any sort in the area, “after the old stone Butter Church,” said Lawson. “They called it that because the [priest] paid his helpers by selling butter.”
There were no roads to the property back in the late 1860s, but building the cabin was possible because the property was on “an ocean-going river.”
Everything had to be ferried to the site, but luckily, boats could tie up to a rock ledge at the foot of the property that juts over the water like a dock, and measures about 18-by-two metres.
The owners used to live deep in a forest, in a dip where there was little wind and the smoke often settled when neighbours used wood-burning stoves, so they moved to the cottage because of fresh air and water access.
Lawson loves to swim and takes the plunge almost daily from early spring to late autumn. “It’s like skydiving in a whole new world.”
She swims in front of her house at high tide or snorkels in Maple Bay at low tide. Her strategy for keeping warm involves a layer of wool, at least two old wetsuits, a neoprene jacket and bicycle shorts, diving boots and gloves with wool socks and gloves underneath.
“I’ve now started using an old French-made suit over the top, made by Beuchat and bought at a garage sale. It’s all about the exercise and making it more palatable and fun.”
The getup keeps her warm, which is important as she likes to spend two hours at a time in the water. Most mornings, she also hikes on Mt. Tzouhalem — said to be sacred to First Nations.
O’Brian is not a swimmer and spends what scant spare time he has working on the cottage or gardening.
“The house used to have a pokey old porch off the kitchen,” which he replaced with a small solarium with glass doors and roof. “I wanted to get more space and light in there, so I replaced the dark linoleum with light oak, too.” He made the fir cabinets and closed in a second verandah. His next project will be to expand the bathroom and extend the deck of their 1,400-square-foot home.
They could use more room, as their home brims with antiques and curiosities.
Lawson was born in Yorkshire but her mother was born in India, and her daughter always wanted to travel there. At age 21, Lawson and a group of British friends drove across Europe and the Middle East in a $100 van.
“It was a slow and fascinating trip. We spent a month driving through Iran …. We loved Afghanistan.”
Handicrafts from that expedition decorate her home — by the front door is a tray she traded for a transistor radio in Afghanistan. Her love of the “intoxicating” colours of India is evident in curtains and fabrics.
The group couldn’t take the van into India, so they travelled by train through the Khyber Pass. “Having spent a month in a very arid country of brown grass, we were suddenly in what seemed like a greenhouse. It was fantastic. When we got off the train, we were covered in black soot from the waist up, from sitting by the window.”
Every piece in the house has a story and many appear in her art.
Lawson is also inspired by nearby water. She quotes French Fauvist painter Raoul Duffy: “Unhappy the man that lives far from the sea, unfed by the sparkling waters of a river.”
“We feel truly blessed to live here and feel more like wardens than owners. The property is only 1.1 acres but the setting is breathtaking, overlooking thousands of acres of mountain, river, estuary and sea.”
Luckily, O’Brian has the skills to restore the aging structure.
Born in Germany, he came to Canada as a youngster and moved around a lot (his father was in the air force) before studying at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology.
Life in an historic home is full of surprises, as they recently learned after uncovering bullet holes in one of their ceilings.
It turned out that two brothers who used to own the place had settled a dispute one day by firing a shotgun. “It made a bunch of holes, one about the size of a golf ball,” said O’Brian, who found them in the floor of a spare bedroom upstairs.
The downstairs ceiling had long ago been covered in tongue-and-groove, so it was hidden until they pulled away the upstairs carpet.
“Nothing settles an argument quicker than a gun shot,” he said with a chuckle.
Artists open doors to public
What: Cowichan Artisans Studio Tour
Where: Cowichan Valley
When: Nov. 7 and 8, from 10 a.m.
to 5 p.m.
Tickets: Free, self-guided. More info and map at cowichanartisans.com
The Cowichan Valley is often called Canada’s Provence thanks to its glorious landscape, abundance of fresh produce, and cornucopia of artistry, craftsmanship and creativity.
The upcoming, self-guided artisans tour and sale will allow visitors to explore the studios and galleries of artisans who live in this stunning valley, meet the artists and learn more about their creative process.
The studios feature everything from marquetry and automotive woodwork to acrylic and watercolour paintings, functional art furniture, turned wood pieces, ceramic sculptures and stoneware, glass jewelry and vessels, folk art sculpture and winemaking.
