Jimmy Zheng/Jimmy Zheng/Aison Photo Inc.
31 Colquhoun Cres., Hamilton
Asking Price: $5.486-million
Taxes: $35,979 (2021)
Lot Size: 134 feet by 361 feet
Agents: Lan Burgess, broker with Re/Max Real Estate Centre Inc.
The backstory
Sometimes all it takes is one look at a house and you’re sold. For Diane Zhao, all it took was the view from the backyard of 31 Colquhoun Cres.
Colquhoun Crescent is just off Hamilton’s Scenic Drive – an aptly named road that runs along the edge of the Niagara Escarpment, an area the locals call The Mountain that overlooks the lake-side steel town below. The view from 31 Colquhoun Cres., is an unobstructed vista of the city; it feels like your own private lookout point.
“The view is unbeatable,” Ms. Zhao said. “If you’re sitting in the back living room you can see the view from sunrise to sunset; it’s like a painting. Once I moved in I saw it’s not just the daytime, there’s a huge balcony off the master bedroom and even at midnight you see this stunning, phenomenal view of the city.”
The most critical detail of the house is that it has been completely renovated inside.Jimmy Zheng/Jimmy Zheng/Aison Photo Inc.
What really brought Ms. Zhao to the area was education: The private school she enrolled her children in (Hillfield Strathallan College) is literally just down the street.
Ms. Zhao is from Nanning, China, in Guangxi province (near the Vietnam border), where her husband operates an organic agriculture business. She says she moved to Canada 11 years ago to give her children a Canadian education: “We wanted them to experience a different education than what’s in China, to broaden their knowledge of the world,” she said. The plan may have worked too well, “I believe they like Canada more,” Ms. Zhao said, and offers that she also prefers the weather here to back home. “I’m originally from the southern part of China; it’s humid and hot and like summer 90 per cent of the year.”
In normal years her husband would visit Canada four or five times, but since the pandemic began almost two years ago they haven’t been able to see each other in person.
“It’s been a big impact,” she said. “Thankfully, with modern technology, every day we can Facetime or Zoom. It helps a lot.”
Her youngest child is six, and her oldest is just heading off to university, so Ms. Zhao has decided it’s time to downsize to something a little more manageable than the almost 13,000 square feet of living space (including the basement) at 31 Colquhoun Cres.
The house today
The true primary bedroom is at the rear of the house and can’t really be mistaken once you see it.Jimmy Zheng/Jimmy Zheng/Aison Photo Inc.
The most critical detail of the house is that it has been completely renovated inside. The exterior structure is mostly intact from when she bought it four years ago, said Ms. Zhao, but inside, “no corner was spared, including the layout which was totally changed.”
“The old layout had a lot of irregular shapes; I wanted to make the house functional and I tried to make everything rectangular and square,” said Ms. Zhao, whose English is limited, so her realtor Lan Burgess assists in translating. “She is super organized,” Ms. Burgess said about her client, who she said spent close to $2-million on the extensive interior updates.
The result is a main floor done almost entirely in white, with over-sized tile flooring in all the hallways with engineered hardwood in most of the adjoining rooms. Through the double doors (which are framed by an oversized arch of windows) is a soaring two-storey atrium with a coffered ceiling and stairs with black-stained wood treads climbing to the second level.
To the right is a large office with view of the front garden, on the left is a formal dining room with a butler’s pantry that leads toward the kitchen in the rear.
Straight ahead is sitting room/entertaining space that also stretches up two storeys (which is open to an upstairs walkway between the living quarters) with a fireplace centred between two floor-to-ceiling windows. On the left, is the large eat-in kitchen.
A painted-blue central island with brass faucets and hardware anchors the kitchen with white pantry walls off each end, behind which is the huge gas range with enormous single-slab porcelain backsplash that runs up to the over-sized fan hood. The eating area sits across from the island next to a window wall and a set of glass French doors that open to raised patio in the rear. A step down from the kitchen is a den/sun room with a TV and another coffered ceiling with another window wall facing the lower patio and pool deck. Standing on that patio those views once again can’t be beat.
Tucked away behind the kitchen is a set of stairs leading up to what might have once been servants quarters is a large playroom today (her youngest’s favourite space). Unlike the mainly white-walled house this space has whimsical blue and green paint shades that alternate on almost every angle of the dormers and walls. There’s a powder room here, but it’s separated from the rest of this level’s rooms by a short hallway.
Past an upstairs laundry (there’s also laundry in the finished basement, next to an in-law suite) is a hallway that connects the four bedrooms on this level. The house is big enough that each of these bedrooms could be a primary suite in another house, they all have walk-in closets and their own ensuite bathrooms, though the two at the far end of the hall (past the overlook balcony) are the smaller of the four. The third bedroom is quite large, that’s for the university-bound senior child, and features its own separate office space.
The main floor was done almost entirely in white, with over-sized tile flooring in all the hallways with engineered hardwood in most of the adjoining rooms.Jimmy Zheng/Jimmy Zheng/Aison Photo Inc.
The true primary bedroom is at the rear of the house and can’t really be mistaken once you see it. A huge bedroom with that $5-million dollar view curves to the left to a large den with fireplace and access to the balcony overlooking the pool and the city. Just off this is a large ensuite bathroom (done in black and white like the rest of the house) with a black standalone soaker tub on one side of the double vanity and glassed-in shower on the other. Behind the bed is an over-sized walk-in closet/dressing room filled with custom cabinets.
The finished basement has the in-law suite, (there’s also a main-floor bedroom tucked away near the mudroom that could serve as a nanny suite). The main area is a huge family space with stone wall with electric fireplace. There’s also a bar area, billiards room, library, gym and a bathroom with a cedar-walled sauna and separate shower.
Favourite space
Ms. Zhao at first suggests she most prefers the study inside the house. But as the conversation progresses, her true passion emerges: The garden which extends almost 100 feet from the street and covers almost an acre of land.
When she was renovating the house she hired a landscaper but was ultimately unsatisfied with the result and set about re-doing it herself.
“Another reason she and the neighbours get along is they appreciate the work she’s done,” Ms. Burgess said. “She can point out a dozen different trees she planted – lavender, cherry trees – it’s amazing. She’ll be cutting branches and digging while chatting with me on the phone.”
Ms. Zhao admits she can spend anywhere between three to five hours a day gardening. “I hope the next family are like me and really take care of the property and make it even better,” she said. “I put a lot of thought into making it beautiful and functional.”
Ms. Zhao admits she can spend anywhere between three to five hours a day gardening.Jimmy Zheng/Jimmy Zheng/Aison Photo Inc.
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Shane Dingman