“We love the country, we love Prince Edward County, let’s look for a place there.’ ” Frank Park and his wife, Tracey, were first charmed by the bucolic slice of eastern Ontario when they visited in the early 1990s, for years attending an annual summer party at a friend’s farmhouse in Bloomfield, Ont. Nearly two decades later, the partying stopped, but Frank and Tracey were hooked on cottaging in The County.
As an architect, Frank was keen on buying a vacant plot rather than an already constructed cottage. “We wanted a blank slate; to start fresh,” he says. After two years of searching (with their kids Ethan and Jade in tow, then nine and seven, respectively) they purchased an unserviced, two-acre property in North Marysburgh, Ont., in 2015. “We didn’t want to be in a busy area, and this was a private lot off a seasonal road, surrounded by trees with 200 feet of waterfront,” says Tracey. Soon after, Frank got to work on designing the 2,000-sq.-ft., four-bedroom cottage, with construction beginning in the spring of 2017.
“It needed to be modern, but at the same time comfortable. And it had to have capacity to host multiple visitors at any time of the year,” says Frank. “We oriented the cottage so that the back faces south, towards the forest, and the front faces north, towards the water.” This allows the north-facing dining and living areas exposure to soft, diffused light, and for lush forest views out of the south-facing kitchen windows. The location was also functional: the cottage is surrounded by a bounty of trees that help heat or cool the structure depending on the time of year. “In the summer, the trees keep the cottage cool by shading it from direct sunlight, and in the winter, the trees are bare, so the sun naturally heats the cottage,” says Frank. He figures the family saves about $2,000 per year on heating and cooling costs.
Despite the cottage being on-grid, it has no central air conditioning, so Frank designed the windows on the cottage’s north and south sides to essentially mirror one another for optimal airflow. “The cottage sits on a hill, and there’s always a cool breeze coming from the forested south side, which is then met by the gentle wind coming from the lake on the north side,” he says. On warmer days, ceiling fans in the living room and primary bedroom boost air circulation. And during the cooler months, water-based, radiant in-floor heating efficiently keeps the cottage’s main floor warm and toasty. Radiators in each upstairs bedroom pull from the same hot water mechanism as the floors, and a heat recovery ventilator (HRV) exchanges the stale air inside the cottage for fresh, outdoor air, ensuring it stays free of air pollutants.
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Keeping the cottage’s layout open while maintaining some sort of spatial separation was important to Frank and Tracey, especially on the main floor. “Our home in Toronto is open-concept, and when we have groups of people over, sometimes noise becomes an issue,” says Frank. To strike their desired balance, Frank situated a fireplace between the living and dining rooms, with a walk-through staircase to help with flow. “We’ve hosted groups of up to 12 people for dinner parties very comfortably,” says Tracey. “You can walk through rooms and around the cottage with ease. It’s almost like a circuit.”
The cottage’s standout feature is the expansive 12-by-7-foot folding door in the kitchen and dining area. Frank and Tracey wanted to dine alfresco year-round as a family, so the folding doors offered the ultimate solution. “You’re essentially eating outside without being outside,” says Frank. And if you’re wondering about the bugs, the couple made sure to have a sliding screen integrated into the door frame. “When we open the door, we just pull the bug screen across and we’re set,” says Frank, adding that in the fall, when mosquitoes are less of a worry, they don’t use the screen at all.
In the living room, a recessed window maximizes the cottage’s prized waterfront vistas that peek out just beyond the property’s cresting hill. “We call the window ‘aperture,’ ” says Frank. “Tracey and I both love photography, and we intentionally sit-uated the window so it would frame the view of the water.” The positioning was so intentional, in fact, that the family camped on the property before Frank began drawing the cottage’s plans just so he could find the perfect spot for the window. He even used a special software called Revit to calculate the sun’s solar path to ensure the window would frame a straight line view of the sunset 365 days a year.
Maximizing the space’s functionality through smaller design details was another priority for the couple. The main floor guest bedroom is reserved for those who can’t easily navigate stairs, such as Frank and Tracey’s parents, and two of the upstairs bedrooms (one with a set of bunk beds) comfortably accommodate Ethan, Jade, and their friends. In the kitchen, the sink is tucked away and off the island, reserving the area for socializing and extra seating during meals. “That’s our main gathering space. We eat, drink, and play games there often,” says Frank. Having the sink on the side counter also allows the longer, south-facing counter to act as the kitchen’s workhorse. “It’s great to have that continuous countertop to prepare meals and cocktails, and the views of the forest don’t hurt either,” Frank says.
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For the cottage’s colour scheme, Frank and Tracey wanted to emphasize a dark-light contrast, that’s why the exterior is clad in pre-finished black wood siding with lighter oaks and pines framing the windows and doors. Inside, the cottage comes alive with brightly coloured accents, such as the teal bar stools, a scarlet sink and mirror in the main floor bathroom, and lots of blue, purple, and orange pops of colour throughout each of the bedrooms. (Not to mention the cherry-red Muskoka chairs on the deck.) “We painted the whole cottage interior Chantilly Lace by Benjamin Moore,” says Tracey. “It’s a warm-ish white, but it can look sterile on its own, so adding colour helps the space feel more inviting.”
And while Frank and Tracey’s County days may no longer involve farmhouse parties in Bloomfield, they do include get-togethers of another kind. “We have those same friends over for dinner parties at our cottage. It’s wonderful returning their hospitality after all these years,” says Frank. “The County has changed a lot since then, but its natural beauty hasn’t. That’s what drew us here and will keep us coming back. Hopefully one day for good.”
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