Home of the Week: French Cottage with a Lorne Park twist
Builder's flagship home modelled on classic lines
Home of the Week, 1329 Whiteoaks Ave., Mississauga, Ont. Asking price: $4,749,000. Luxury home builder Ivan Curic has been designing and building spec homes for six years and says 1329 Whiteoaks is his flagship build. The Lorne Park home on a 100- by 271.25-foot lot has 12 rooms, seven bathrooms and four fireplaces.
The project began nearly two years ago, in late November, 2011. At the time, a much smaller, older house occupied the enormous lot. Mr. Curic and architect David Small decided that the footprint of the new home had to be much bigger than the original – which Mr. Curic estimated was about 1,600 square feet – if it was going to hold its own on the massive lot. In the end, they settled on just under 6,400 square feet.
Mr. Curic knew that he wanted to build a French country-style house: something with a stone exterior, copper detailing and the sloping, natural slate roof that define the genre. But generally in true French country homes, the roofs shrink the grandeur of the upper floor rooms. To avoid this, Mr. Curic boxed out the upper floors to give all of the bedrooms – including the master suite – nine-foot ceilings.
To match the cottage exterior, the interior of the home is a modern take on European traditional. Mr. Curic calls his style “transitional,” but what really defines it are the details that are woven throughout. 'In a lot of larger condos, you see a lot of fancy details and I thought why don’t homes of this size have some similar,' he said. 'So I tried to integrate that feel and bring that standard of building to this home.’
Luxury details include the faux silver leaf ceilings found in multiple rooms; custom wood panelling; a handcrafted, iridescent mosaic found on the floor in the master bath. ‘When you build a home at this price, you have got to somehow accommodate to everybody’s taste and styles since there is only so many people who will be in the market for it,' Mr. Curic said.
Mr. Curic’s favourite room is actually a set of three: the wine cellars and tasting room. Found on the lower level, the two cellars (one for red, one for white) are built out of walnut and can hold an estimated 7,000 bottles. Connecting them is the tasting room.