Green shag and modernist stylings bring retro aesthetic to Guelph home

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The green shag carpet has got to go. Which is ironic, since if there ever were green shag kind of people, thirty-something couple Cass Goulding and Chris Bowman would fit the bill. It’s just that, well, their dogs, Summit and Sushi: they think it’s a lawn.

“It’s gorgeous,” Ms. Goulding says of the ruggy relic, “but it has a musk now.”

“We essentially want it to be a lounge down here,” adds her husband. Eventually, what is now just a yawningly large room with a smattering of bowling alley seating and a few chairs will sport a pool table, more furniture, and area rugs.

“And we are paying homage to the green, because I want lots of green everywhere,” she finishes.

But a tour of the 1960 Goulding-Bowman home in Guelph, Ont. – located a 10-minute drive from a heritage-designated, barrel vault roofed home by the same architect, Richard (Dick) Pagani (1930-2004) – reveals a greater concentration of goldenrod and oranges, since those are Ms. Goulding’s favourite colours. There is also much that’s painted white, since that keeps the focus on the architecture, which is what attracted the couple to relocate from Oshawa, Ont., in 2019.

Bathed in light from the wall of glass in the double-height foyer, Ms. Goulding, a social media manager who also wields a mean artist’s brush (several of the paintings on the walls are by her hand) says that the entryway was the big selling point. The other was that Pearson International Airport is less than an hour’s drive for Mr. Bowman, who serves as first officer on big cargo flights. And fittingly, the first thing a visitor will notice is the vintage United Air Lines travel poster, which is also a nod to the couple’s love of 1950s-60s breezy California graphic design and architecture.

After that big transparent wall, the other star attraction is the wide staircase of open treads, ultra-thin balusters and wide horizontal boards. Its modernist, sculptural form speaks to the influence of two towering figures on the Guelph-born Dick Pagani: Massachusetts Institute of Technology architecture school Dean Pietro Belluschi, where Mr. Pagani received his degree, and, after graduation, Gio Ponti in Milan, where the young architect worked for almost a year. Pagani’s father, Dario, a Guelph-area contractor-builder, also played a huge role.

Working in Guelph until the mid-60s, the work of Huget, Secord and Pagani can be found all over; the “praying hands” church at 206 Victoria Rd. N., the now altered police station on Wyndham Street S., the Guelph Community Christian School (complete with a butterfly roof), the Pagani family home (with the barrel-vault) at 13 Evergreen Dr., and many other buildings. In fact, many folks in the Royal City credit Pagani and his firm for bringing modernism to the area.

The house now owned by Ms. Goulding and Mr. Bowman was designed in 1959 and built in 1960 for Gordon and Rita Campbell. Ms. Campbell, in particular, was well known in Guelph since she worked, for 66 years, as an usher at the Memorial Gardens and the Sleeman Centre (she died in 2018). And while there was one owner after Ms. Campbell, Ms. Goulding says some of their remodelling choices, and even some of their decor, was close enough to their aesthetic that they’ve kept it.

The small kitchen, for instance, had been moved over so it could drink in views of the backyard, and the dining area put in its place. While Ms. Goulding and Mr. Bowman wouldn’t have chosen Shaker style cabinets – ”I wish it was a wall of fake walnut,” says Ms. Goulding – and a plain white backsplash, they enjoy having a 21st-century kitchen with a Wolf stove. And, obviously, the previous owner’s black-and-white pop art wallpaper and George Nelson bubble lamp were welcome to keep the vintage teak dining table company.

In addition to some solid and sober mid-century pieces such as a George Nelson platform bench and a Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chair, there are contemporary pieces of furniture combined with “retro surrealism” collage art – Pam Am jets landing on the moon by Thom Easton and 1960s executives surrounded by rocket ships by Frank Moth – which keeps the house from looking like a museum.

“I like a good blend of styles,” Mr. Bowman says. “Modernism in general is what I like … [but] there’s Scandinavian, there’s Japanese, there’s American, there’s brutalism, there’re so many bits that I love that I just can’t dedicate myself to one section.”

This lack of dogma or purism will serve the couple well when it comes to the (mostly) original bathrooms. While the turquoise tub and basket weave tile underfoot is wonderful, these, like the green shag, might have to go. The floor tile “is coming up in certain places, and the other issue is the mould here that we can’t get rid of,” says Ms. Goulding, pointing to the tub tile.

It’s a good thing there are now niche manufacturers that make MCM-style tile and even ‘big bathroom,’ in recent years, has released coloured sinks and tubs again.

Besides the bathrooms, future projects include the possible restoration of the foyer’s original floor, more window replacement (using original muntin placement where possible), replacing the traditional door of the en suite with pocket doors to gain more space, and stripping some painted-over closet doors to reveal the mahogany underneath.

But it won’t be work, it’ll be fun: “There was a station on TV called Deja View, so I watched Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie and Happy Days,” Ms. Goulding says about her childhood. “Since then I have been obsessed with those set designs … and when we got to this house, I just think of it as if I’m designing for a movie or TV show.”