Editors’ Picks: Our Favourite Homes of 2015

We know we shouldn’t play favourites€”but with houses this beautiful always on our radar, sometimes we just can’t help ourselves.

Paul Lavoie’s Own Home

Designer Paul Lavoie’s own home in Calgary is one my favourites of all time, so it had to top my list for 2015. It’s a ’60s era space, but his collection of furniture is eclectic—antique gold wingback chairs, Switzer end tables, tiny side chairs that fit perfectly within the millwork shelving in the living room, along with mid-century finds from Palm Springs. And that 22-foot Nanawall that slides open to the always-sunny backyard and pool—it’s a home where I’d love to spend many sunny cocktail party.—Anicka Quin, Editor-in-Chief

Splyce Design’s Russet House

We probably feature upwards of 40 homes a year here at WL, and and I’d be lying if I told you I can remember every one of them. No sooner is one issue off to the printer, that we’re at work on the next one. But when I close my eyes at night and imagine the dream home that I want to build, one image always pops into my mind—the cantilevered all glass dining room created by Nigel Parrish of Splyce Design. With its sloped site and its aggressive overhang, it channels all those classic Richard Neutra L.A. houses that I love, but it’s attached to a house that’s less showy and more about function—which is important, because a room that has no place to put a buffet or a sideboard or, frankly anything but a table and chairs, needs some functional assistance from the rest of the house. But functional or not, I can’t help but imagine my dinner’s guest’s faces as they sit down for dinner the first time. That’s memorable design. –Neal McLennan, Food and Travel Editor

The Revamped Eppich House

The thing about a house like the restored, Arthur Erickson-designed Eppich building—now owned by architecture buff and entrepreneur Asaph Fipke and family—is that it’s so easy to imagine yourself living there. Curled up on the slouchy sofa under the cozy, low-hanging timbre ceiling; reading by the pool; making espresso in the sunny, art-filled kitchen. It’s all about the luxury of the simple things. Sure, a personal waterslide would be fun, but dreaming small(ish) is more than enough for this girl. —Stacey McLachlan, Associate Editor

Liquidity Wine’s Okanagan Home

Born and raised in the Okanagan, I can’t help but be drawn to this house that’s perched on 450 feet of development-free lakefront—it’s like The Last Unicorn—magical, elusive and, lamentably, an endangered species. Inside the home (owned by Liquidity Wine’s Ian MacDonald), the almost double-height great room on the second floor is all windows, so you get a panoramic view of Peachland to Penticton. The colour palette (or colourless palette) also speaks to me in minimalist white, with a few warm wood accents on light concrete floors. I also want to applaud the homeowner for going with an obviously comfortable couch that couldn’t be farther from the hoard of chic, rigid-back, skinny-arm-rest, mid-century modern apartment sofas that have become so popular as of late. And then there’s the bedroom with the 180-degree view that slides open to its own patio deck. This is the definition of dream house.—Julia Dilworth, Staff Writer