Listing agent: Susan Diamond, Engel & Völkers Chester
The backstory
The central premise of the 1989 Kevin Costner baseball movie Field of Dreams was, “If you build it, they will come.”
In real life, sometimes they still don’t come.
That’s part of the story of couple Robynne Moncur and Chris Dineley’s 6,000-square-foot seaside house on Nova Scotia’s south shore (about two hours from Halifax): They built it planning to retire there, but as it turns out, if they move in full-time it could be a lonely outpost for the family.
“Our three daughters have absolutely no interest in ever going there again. … They won’t come to Nova Scotia – they made that very clear,” said Ms. Moncur, an interior designer with a long career of shaping spaces in the hotel and restaurant business.
Over the years there were summers and some Christmases spent on the ocean, but the daughters (fully grown with families of their own in Ontario and California) made it clear the rugged Atlantic coastline is just a little too far out of the way to make it a habit.
“My mother was born and raised in Nova Scotia. We would go every summer until I was a teenager and didn’t want to do it any more,” Ms. Moncur said. In some ways, perhaps she should have seen it coming.
But the pull of the Maritimes was strong enough that when she stumbled across an online listing for the undeveloped land in 2008 she almost bought it sight-unseen. “I had such an affinity to it, and I didn’t know why,” she said.
It was in 2010, when they were building the home and she was speaking to her mother about the location when the final piece fell into place. “She gasped on the phone,” and when Ms. Moncur pressed, her mother explained that bay was very special indeed. “My father was in the Canadian Navy, and as an honorarium you can choose to be buried at sea,” she said. When he died in 2000 the site he chose for his eternal rest was Port Mouton Bay. The X that marks the spot on her mother’s map is right across from Ms. Moncur’s Hunt’s Point home.
The house today
Home of the Week: 6999 Highway 3, Hunt’s Point, NSConcept Measures
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Home of the Week: 6999 Highway 3, Hunts Point, NSConcept Measures
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Home of the Week: 6999 Highway 3, Hunt’s Point, NSConcept Measures
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Home of the Week: 6999 Highway 3, Hunt’s Point, NSConcept Measures
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Home of the Week: 6999 Highway 3, Hunts Point, NSConcept Measures
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Home of the Week: 6999 Highway 3, Hunt’s Point, NSConcept Measures
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Home of the Week: 6999 Highway 3, Hunt’s Point, NSConcept Measures
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Home of the Week: 6999 Highway 3, Hunt’s Point, NSConcept Measures
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Home of the Week: 6999 Highway 3, Hunts Point, NSConcept Measures
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Home of the Week: 6999 Highway 3, Hunts Point, NSConcept Measures
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Home of the Week: 6999 Highway 3, Hunts Point, NSConcept Measures
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Home of the Week: 6999 Highway 3, Hunts Point, NSConcept Measures
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Home of the Week: 6999 Highway 3, Hunt’s Point, NSConcept Measures
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Home of the Week: 6999 Highway 3, Hunts Point, NSConcept Measures
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Home of the Week: 6999 Highway 3, Hunt’s Point, NSConcept Measures
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Everything about this home is designed to respond to the ocean. Down a steep grade from the highway the wooded lot gives way to a rocky shore where the house sits.
The house was designed by Ms. Moncur and is built around three “pods” that are the main living spaces connected to each other by walkways that hold ancillary spaces. From the outside, it looks a bit like three smaller cottages connected by lantern-shaped structures, that echo the “widow’s walks” and lighthouse turrets of the Atlantic Coast. “There’s lighting in those coffers, so at night it is really a beacon,” said Ms. Moncur.
Inside and out the couple focused on natural materials: Nova Scotia cedar planks and shake on the exterior and on the interior a mix of black basalt stone and wide-plank oak floors. The walls are mainly white, allowing the few accent colour walls to jump out, and the trim and doors are mainly black.
Ms. Moncur had never done the architectural drawings for a whole house before this (though she is back at it again for her next home, located more centrally for the daughters). Her firm does a lot of design for big hotel chains, and some of her favourite work was for Toronto’s venerable King Edward Hotel, including the refurbishment of the long-mothballed 17th-floor Crystal Ballroom. Like that ballroom, her home was also designed to be unique.
“The last thing I ever wanted it to do was look like a hotel interior,” she said. Her background shows up in the home in elements such as indirect lighting and elevated material choices.
“We didn’t cheap out on anything,” said Mr. Dineley. “We had access to quality supplies, as opposed to Home Depot.” That shows up in things like stainless-steel prep areas in the kitchen with integrally welded sinks, commercial kitchen quality appliances, and the custom-built black-framed windows that dominate all the water-facing walls of the house.
“They are designed to almost disappear because of that small mullion on the steel window,” said Ms. Moncur.
The entry foyer is in the “lantern” on the right, between the pod on the end that holds the primary living suite and the large central pod with living and dining space with a kitchen on the forested side. Passing through the second lantern (where laundry and powder room are tucked away) you get to the guest pod with three bedrooms and a large shared bathroom. All across the back of the home is a connected walkout patio, with defined spaces for outdoor cooking and swimming in the long narrow lap pool.
The home away from home inside the home
Some primary suites are just a bedroom with a closet, but in this house, it’s truly a self-contained retreat. On the right of the door into the suite is an office space that could be converted to a bedroom, but to the left is a long bedroom with ocean views. The space loops around a central chamber that contains a large ensuite bathroom/dressing room, and culminates in a library/private media room on the forest side of the house.
Almost every room has excellent views of the ocean, but to be sitting in bed looking at a raging storm is perhaps the best way to witness it.
“It is truly phenomenal when the waves hit the big rocks, when the tide goes out you can see they are massive,” said Ms. Moncur. “The show is just incredible. It’s spectacular.”
TORONTO – The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board says home sales in October surged as buyers continued moving off the sidelines amid lower interest rates.
The board said 6,658 homes changed hands last month in the Greater Toronto Area, up 44.4 per cent compared with 4,611 in the same month last year. Sales were up 14 per cent from September on a seasonally adjusted basis.
The average selling price was up 1.1 per cent compared with a year earlier at $1,135,215. The composite benchmark price, meant to represent the typical home, was down 3.3 per cent year-over-year.
“While we are still early in the Bank of Canada’s rate cutting cycle, it definitely does appear that an increasing number of buyers moved off the sidelines and back into the marketplace in October,” said TRREB president Jennifer Pearce in a news release.
“The positive affordability picture brought about by lower borrowing costs and relatively flat home prices prompted this improvement in market activity.”
The Bank of Canada has slashed its key interest rate four times since June, including a half-percentage point cut on Oct. 23. The rate now stands at 3.75 per cent, down from the high of five per cent that deterred many would-be buyers from the housing market.
New listings last month totalled 15,328, up 4.3 per cent from a year earlier.
In the City of Toronto, there were 2,509 sales last month, a 37.6 per cent jump from October 2023. Throughout the rest of the GTA, home sales rose 48.9 per cent to 4,149.
The sales uptick is encouraging, said Cameron Forbes, general manager and broker for Re/Max Realtron Realty Inc., who added the figures for October were stronger than he anticipated.
“I thought they’d be up for sure, but not necessarily that much,” said Forbes.
“Obviously, the 50 basis points was certainly a great move in the right direction. I just thought it would take more to get things going.”
He said it shows confidence in the market is returning faster than expected, especially among existing homeowners looking for a new property.
“The average consumer who’s employed and may have been able to get some increases in their wages over the last little bit to make up some ground with inflation, I think they’re confident, so they’re looking in the market.
“The conditions are nice because you’ve got a little more time, you’ve got more choice, you’ve got fewer other buyers to compete against.”
All property types saw more sales in October compared with a year ago throughout the GTA.
Townhouses led the surge with 56.8 per cent more sales, followed by detached homes at 46.6 per cent and semi-detached homes at 44 per cent. There were 33.4 per cent more condos that changed hands year-over-year.
“Market conditions did tighten in October, but there is still a lot of inventory and therefore choice for homebuyers,” said TRREB chief market analyst Jason Mercer.
“This choice will keep home price growth moderate over the next few months. However, as inventory is absorbed and home construction continues to lag population growth, selling price growth will accelerate, likely as we move through the spring of 2025.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
HALIFAX – A village of tiny homes is set to open next month in a Halifax suburb, the latest project by the provincial government to address homelessness.
Located in Lower Sackville, N.S., the tiny home community will house up to 34 people when the first 26 units open Nov. 4.
Another 35 people are scheduled to move in when construction on another 29 units should be complete in December, under a partnership between the province, the Halifax Regional Municipality, United Way Halifax, The Shaw Group and Dexter Construction.
The province invested $9.4 million to build the village and will contribute $935,000 annually for operating costs.
Residents have been chosen from a list of people experiencing homelessness maintained by the Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia.
They will pay rent that is tied to their income for a unit that is fully furnished with a private bathroom, shower and a kitchen equipped with a cooktop, small fridge and microwave.
The Atlantic Community Shelters Society will also provide support to residents, ranging from counselling and mental health supports to employment and educational services.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 24, 2024.
Housing affordability is a key issue in the provincial election campaign in British Columbia, particularly in major centres.
Here are some statistics about housing in B.C. from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s 2024 Rental Market Report, issued in January, and the B.C. Real Estate Association’s August 2024 report.
Average residential home price in B.C.: $938,500
Average price in greater Vancouver (2024 year to date): $1,304,438
Average price in greater Victoria (2024 year to date): $979,103
Average price in the Okanagan (2024 year to date): $748,015
Average two-bedroom purpose-built rental in Vancouver: $2,181
Average two-bedroom purpose-built rental in Victoria: $1,839
Average two-bedroom purpose-built rental in Canada: $1,359
Rental vacancy rate in Vancouver: 0.9 per cent
How much more do new renters in Vancouver pay compared with renters who have occupied their home for at least a year: 27 per cent
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
