goodie : 1263 fulton avenue

Home in West Vancouver designed by Brad Lamoureux in 1996. Check out the realtor’s listing here.

If you drive down Fulton Avenue, you will not be able to miss this iconic house. The strong horizontal lines of the roof and perfect symmetrical design are striking among the typical homes on this street. Though at first, the ‘floating’ roof line over the second floor may look rather imposing, it does create many nice covered outdoor living spaces. Another thing that may see odd to do is to put a huge roof on the house, thinking that this will just create lots of dark rooms on the inside, but the opposite is true. The architect is a master at bringing in light into those parts of the house that would otherwise be left in the darkness. Through the extensive use of skylights and clerestory windows, it seems that this house can be thoroughly enjoyed during the day without any artificial lighting.

The central space on the second floor has a peaked roof with post and beam details supporting it. I love the fact that the architect has allowed all the structure to be revealed and exposed in the interior of the house. Not only does this add warmth and character to the house but also shows how the house is put together and it recalls back to the mid-century moderns where it was so common to have the beams in the ceiling exposed.

Here you can get an idea of the circulation from the main entry door to the living spaces above. This house having the living spaces on the upper floor ensure that the views the house has, are well enjoyed. The craftsmanship of the handrails is exquisite. The cheap way would have been just to build the pony wall of the guard all the way up to the required height but Brad has done something much nicer. By lowering the pony wall and adding a round wooden handrail, it not only is much nicer functionally, but that handrail actually longs for you to hold on to it as you travel up or down the stairs. Of course the use of natural wood in a white-walled house is essential in ensuring the interior spaces don’t become too stark and cold.

Even the bedrooms have tremendous amount of natural light. A glazed door with a transom window, and a window adjacent to it are the two ways of bringing the light in from the covered patio space outside. But that would not be sufficient as this would create way too much glare as light from one side of the room will always do. The clever solution here is a skylight over the end wall which washes the wall with soft natural light. Pretty awesome, though that bed has to go.

The home office space once again uses similar elements as the bedroom, though here we have a clerestory window from the sloped roof space above. See the built-in shelf at the top right of the image. I find this interesting. Perhaps this could have been an opening or a window at one time?

The back of the house is just as beautiful as the front. I love these architects that design all the way around. You can see so many houses around town that just have a facade and as soon as you turn a corner it gets bland. Not this house. There is ‘architecture’ all the way around, in every nook and cranny. Just look at those rain-water-leaders from the roof, even they got the same delicate design treatment as the rest of the house. I usually hate gutters and those pipes but here I would say that they even add to the whole of the house. Well done! Great use o frame-less glass railings to ensure unbroken views from the deck and inside the house.

Another view of the dining space. See all the small openings in this image and the ridge skylights in the adjacent spaces.

The kitchen features a seating bar at the window. Nine idea rather than putting the sink at the window. My favorite spot in the kitchen is that coffee corner just next to the fridge. The clerestory windows again are included here to ensure some more indirect natural light. You will never need to turn on any lights here with those nice skylights above.