By Marilyn Smulders
Photos by Mike Dembeck
In Lisa Drader-Murphy’s production studio—a former apple barn—three clocks tick off the minutes in the world’s fashion capitals: Paris, Milan, and yes, Falmouth, Nova Scotia.
But while Lisa has her eye on what’s going on in other places, this Canadian fashion designer has always gone her own way. She started her company, Turbine, in Calgary in 1997 and her chic, classic designs soon caught on with professional women. In just two years, when one store led to another and yet another, she and her husband Carey decided perhaps it was all too much, too fast.
In 1999, the couple relocated their young family to Carey’s native Nova Scotia, drawn in by the beauty of the rural landscape, the slower pace and the easy-going lifestyle. They first visited and fell in love with the 1.6-hectare property when the apple trees were in full bloom.
Built for a sea captain in the mid-1800s, the grand house is one of seven original homes in Falmouth, a farming community located along the banks of the Avon River. Perched on a hilltop, the house with a wide, front verandah has a view of the surrounding countryside.
The Acadians first settled here around 1685, the New England Planters followed in the 1760s and then the Loyalists in the 1780s. The house has had some fascinating incarnations. It was a birth house, where women would come to have their babies with the help of a midwife. It was also an orphanage for boys. And at one time, there was a blacksmith’s shop on the property—as evidenced by the numerous horse shoes and rusty tools unearthed from the lawn.
It’s been interesting living here,” says Lisa. “We’ve had people at the door—I would say they were well into their 90s—who told us they were born here, and, ‘could we just come in and take a peek?’”
While the house offered plenty of character and history, it needed a lot of work. Over the years, they’ve attended to cosmetic changes, ridding the house of its floral wallpaper and matching wallpaper borders and pulling up 1970s-era carpet. They fixed up the apple barn too, converting it into a production centre for Lisa’s fashion business and a destination boutique where she welcomes customers for a behind-the-scenes look. (Last year, she expanded and opened Turbine’s flagship location in Bishop’s Landing on the Halifax waterfront.)
But three years ago, the Murphys embarked on full-scale renovations to create a seamless addition to the back of the house for a mudroom, laundry room and double garage with a loft. They also installed a geothermal heating system and rebuilt the foundation. They opened up the interior by knocking down walls to make bigger rooms out of smaller ones—like the first-floor living space, formerly the kitchen, and a front parlour and the master bedroom and ensuite upstairs, formerly two smaller bedrooms.
Because of the renovations, Lisa, Carey and the kids (Sam, 18, and Sarah, 13) relocated temporarily to another house the Murphys had bought and were reselling. But when that house sold quickly and the renovations to their own house dragged on, the foursome moved again, this time to a trailer parked in the driveway.
A procurement manager in the oil and gas industry, Carey decided to make the best of the situation and came to regard the setback as an adventure. “C’mon, we’ll be making memories!” he told Lisa and the kids.
“Yes, making memories alright,” says Lisa with a laugh, recalling his good cheer. “Traumatic memories!” After weeks stretched into months, they moved again, this time to the loft over the new garage until the rest of the house was finished.
They splurged on some things and scrimped on others. They decided replicating the original exterior mouldings and interior trim was worth it, like the ornate corbels and Italianate decorative details that give the house its sense of grandeur. They commissioned local mill operator Carl Dykens for the job. They replaced old windows with new Atlantic windows, and added three two-storey window bays to match the original ones at the front of the house, flooding the rooms with natural light. They chose white ash, a honey-coloured wood with a gorgeous grain, for the wood floors upstairs and downstairs.
And they took carpenter Paul Rogers’ advice when he told them they needed a “sexy staircase” to add oomph to the front entry hall. He used the same white ash of the floors for the staircase treads and banister, which sweeps upwards on a curve.
Lisa was desperate to decorate—not to mention have a shower in her own house—and create the family home that already existed in her head. As agonizing as the renovations could be, the fun part was choosing the elements to match her vision of a relaxed, contemporary space where two teenagers could have their friends over and she and Carey could have company, too.
“We wanted a place for entertaining,” she says, pouring a cup of coffee into a pottery mug in her new kitchen. “We like to have people over.” On this morning, visiting teenagers are beginning to rouse after a late-night birthday sleepover and are agitating for homemade waffles.
When workers placed the last chunk of stone in the magnificent, two-sided fireplace with propane insert, she got her chance at last. The family threw a Christmas party and welcomed more than 60 people to the festivities.
“I wanted to be able to use every square inch of this space,” explains Lisa. “Before, no one ever went into that front room, and at the party, people were everywhere. It was wonderful.”
Entering the house through the back door in the new mudroom, the first stop is the combination kitchen/living space with the fireplace as a focal point. There are sitting areas on either side of the stone hearth. On one side a pair of Zebra-striped upholstered chairs—an inexpensive find at HomeSense a leather-tufted chaise. On the other, a pair of sleek Barcelona chairs and a black-velvet davenport. Big, leafy potted plants inject shots of green into the cool contemporary space.
The kitchen, designed by Jon Morrison (with Canterbury Woodworks in Halifax), is airy and open, with bird’s-eye maple cabinetry stained a dark espresso. Three pendant lights with elongated shades hang over the massive, 1.8-by-2.9-metre island which is covered with a single slab of granite.
“That was a nice thing about working with some of the local suppliers,” says Carey. “Everyone said, ‘Oh, for something that large, you’re going to have a seam.’ But Jeff Nelson at Heritage Memorial over in Windsor, said, ‘Let’s see what we’ve got in the yard.’ And that’s when we found exactly what we wanted. It was the largest single piece they’ve ever installed and it took a whole team to get it through the door.”
“I love the island,” adds Lisa. “We eat at it and it’s where we all congregate. It’s definitely conducive to the Nova Scotia kitchen party.”
As a designer, Lisa is known for mixing old and new: rescuing long-forgotten bolts of fabric from the backrooms of mills and factories in places like Toronto, Montreal and New York and re-imagining them. She’ll sew crisp blue wool from old police uniforms into classic, two-piece suits. Vintage plaid makes for some darling hobo bags and grey tweed looks great in her wide belts cinched with ribbon.
Her decorating aesthetic is similarly eclectic. She likes bringing together pieces from different eras—like placing the mid-century maple and leather tub chairs she bought at an estate auction alongside a contemporary glass table from Halifax’s M Home. Or the davenport, a Value Village find she’s recovered herself at least five times. It holds its own beside expensive Barcelona chairs from Toronto’s UpCountry.
Upstairs in the new master bedroom, an antique chaise lounge never fails to rouse a smile. Lisa had it reupholstered with a silk painting by local artist Holly Carr of a frisky couple spooning. “It’s so whimsical and fun, a real conversation piece,” she says. There’s original art by Nova Scotia Scotian artists throughout the home, including paintings and photographs by Lynn Rotin, Margot Metcalfe, Judith Liedl, Anne Bastedo and Gary Pridham.
One of her favorite pieces of furniture is the handsome armoire with mirrored panel doors. She splurged on this while still in college, moving it from apartment to apartment, house to house. Placed on top of it is Lisa’s grand- father’s battered leather suitcase. “In it, he had everything he owned when he came here in 1926, a Mennonite from Russia,” she explains. “It reminds me where we’ve come from and where we’re going.”