When Cailey Heaps wants to get away from it all, one place comes to mind: the island of Newfoundland in Canada.
Although he spends most of his time in Toronto, where he runs his real estate brokerage Piles of Estrin and raising her three children – 17-year-old Mimi and 13-year-old twins Declan and Pippa – Newfoundland’s rugged, sea-sprayed east coast has long held a special appeal.
“It’s this very romantic, peaceful part of the world where it feels like time moves at a different pace,” Ms Hipps, 47, said. “I can go there for three days and feel like I’ve had a two-week vacation.”
In 2021, she considered buying a cottage within walking distance of Toronto, but the siren song of Newfoundland beckoned. Diving through the listings, he was surprised to find one with a pair of the most quintessential Newfoundland salt houses he’d ever seen.
The two white houses, built in 1912 and 1914, sat on a property in Salvage, a tiny beach town with a population of 108, along with three red sheds, a small cemetery and a cover at the end of a dock with a hole directly in it. above the water. The parcel was across the harbor from the town center at Burden’s Point, but very visible, and had been on the market for years. It was even the subject news focused on concerns that houses might collapse.
Stuck in Toronto, Ms. Hipps asked her friend and Newfoundland real estate agent Chris O’Dea what he thought about it. “Chris said, ‘Caley, this is a big project. It’s not what you imagine. It is a huge undertaking. There is no road access. It’s only boat and foot access,” Ms Heaps said. “But I thought to myself, ‘Oh, how bad can it be?'”
She decided to buy it without seeing it in person after a local contractor told her the buildings could probably be restored for about C$250,000 ($184,000). It closed in March 2022 for C$235,000 ($173,000). Then she asked Reflect Architecturea Toronto-based studio run by Trevor Wallace, to breathe new life into structures.
“We went out there to check on them,” Mr Wallace said. “And, as with anything this old, there were plenty of surprises.”
Upstairs, the ceilings were about six feet high, so he couldn’t even stand up. Much of the wooden board was so soft you could run a finger through it. The sheds looked ready to topple over.
“It was all very messy,” he said. “They had just lived through a hundred years of good Newfoundland abuse.”
Back in Toronto, Mr. Wallace began drawing up plans to update the two houses and make them comfortable for a new generation while retaining as much character as possible. The plan was to use the larger 1,060-square-foot house, which had no electricity or plumbing, as the main living space and Ms. Heaps’ master suite. The 915-square-foot home — which had a few modern touches, including electricity and a flush toilet — would become a sleeping area for her children and a media room.
The architects took pains to preserve the exterior of the buildings: They added new white clapboard siding that mimics the original siding and standing-seam metal roofs. They kept the original window openings but, inspired by the Canadian painter Christopher Pratt, added new energy-efficient window units with deep jambs to create more dramatic shadows on sunny days. They added a new window in Ms. Hipps’ bedroom that faces the water and is not visible from the city, and designed revolving decks.
Inside, the upstairs ceilings were pushed into the attics for more headroom, and layers of upholstery were removed to reveal the original wood paneling. And new rough wood was installed in areas where the original lining turned out to be odd scraps of timber.
To give the homes a simple, elegant look while keeping costs low, they got creative with paint. Most of the interior is painted white, but various saturated colors—muddy gray, forest green, royal blue, peach—define the staircases and bedrooms. The upgraded kitchen features birch plywood cabinets and butcher block counters.
Outside, they restored one of the sheds to serve as a future artist’s studio and tore down the other two, along with the outhouse. Since there is no road yet, all building materials had to be brought in and out by boat.
Even with such basic material choices and compromises, the build cost more than Ms. Hipps expected. When the project was completed in May 2023, it had reached about 1 million Canadian dollars ($735,000) — four times the original estimate. But it’s money well spent for Ms Hipps, who recoups some of her investment by renting out the property on Airbnb when she’s not using it.
“It’s the most unique setting I’ve ever seen,” he said. “You go out the back door, go up the hill and come to a lookout where all you see is ocean and trees and whales. It’s a magical place.”
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