Tom Ford in the Country: Tour a Stunning Modern Country Home in Vancouver’s Southlands

Kelly Suffron Keay and Aaron Keay were planning to move their young family to Australia. They had sold their home, toured schools and neighbourhoods and even packed up their belongings. But then their dream Vancouver property came up for sale.

Located in the idyllic Southlands neighbourhood, the property had everything they wanted: space, seclusion, a true residential feel and a blank canvas on which to build their perfect family home.

“I love the community aspect of it,” Suffron Keay says of Southlands. “There are kids riding their bikes, there are horses. It’s a really, really great neighbourhood, and there’s people and energy. It’s a great place to raise kids.” And so, the couple decided that Australia would have to wait. For one thing, Suffron Keay—an interior designer by trade, under the name The Creative Designworks Inc.—now had a big job to do.

They tore down the old house on the property and started from scratch, working with Michael Cox at Gateway Architecture on the home itself and Paul Sangha and Mohit Srivastava of Paul Sangha Creative on the landscape architecture, teaming up with Fossil Landscape Construction. Suffron Keay took the lead on the design, with the goal of paying homage to the home’s rural setting while at the same time making it feel fresh and modern.

“Because Southlands has such beautiful old growth trees and lush foliage I really wanted to capture that as a backdrop to the home,” she says. “We positioned windows where the natural surroundings would be captured.”

Her plan was to use luxurious fabrics, cohesive colours and clean lines, resulting in an aesthetic that she affectionately dubbed Tom Ford in the Country. With that vision in mind, the home came together as a strategically harmonious blend of contemporary design elements—concrete floors, large windows, plush velvet furniture, natural marble countertops, modern art (by the likes of Jeff Koons and David LaChapelle)—coupled with more traditional country home features like pitched roofs, tree canopies and large stone cladding.

A standout design feature is the sunken sofa in the living room, which was custom-built by Vancouver’s WD Western Designers in a delicious shade of hunter green. Minotti Flirt coffee tables and a Baxter Onyx table from Livingspace complete the look, which perfectly encapsulates Suffron Keay’s vision for a contemporary country home. During construction, though, the living room raised a few eyebrows.

“Everyone walked in and went, ‘What are you doing here? That’s ridiculous. What is this, a fishing pond?’” she recalls. “That sunken living room was the first thing that I designed, because in Southlands you don’t have basements. There are not many homes where you can do that.”

And while there might not be a fishing pond, the outdoor landscape has plenty of beautiful features, from the fire pits and the glass-tiled pool to the long country-lane driveway engulfed in layered foliage.

“The project incorporates many classical elements typical of a country home, but with a refined, minimalist approach,” says Paul Sangha. “We integrated the feel of a country lane by adding a planted strip along the centre of the driveway for a softer touch, while the trees lining both sides create filtered views, keeping the destination subtly hidden.”

Those view-filtering trees—Japanese stewartias— are bordered by grasses, while trimmed hedges give a sense of structure to the lane. More plants appear as  you draw closer to the house, including Japanese maples and azaleas.

“We aimed to create a sense of compression as you move down the driveway,” Sangha says, explaining that the heavy planting of trees creates a tunnel-like effect, “while the rising garden makes the house appear as though it’s emerging naturally from the surrounding vegetation.”

There is also a strong emphasis on a sense of fluidity between the indoor and outdoor spaces. “What I like to think about is how water naturally flows,” Sangha says. “In the same way, outdoor areas can feel like a continuation of a home, creating a sense of seamless movement so that, he explains, “you’re not thinking about, ‘Well, I’ve got to do this to get to here’ to be able to enjoy those spaces.”

Despite the striking result, the project was not always smooth sailing: Suffron Keay acknowledges there was “a lot of pivoting.” For one thing, the entire home had to be raised by 10 feet (not a simple task), because Southlands is located on the Fraser River floodplain. And, right when they were nearing the end of construction, the city made them flip the entire configuration of the house so that the backside of the driveway wasn’t facing a neighbouring property.

“What I can say, ironically,” she reflects, “is every setback that we were faced with ended up making the property better.”

The couple and their three young children moved into the home in 2021 after two and a half years of construction, and Suffron Keay says it feels amazing: “It’s a place where you come home and you take a breath.”

Landscape Architect Paul Sangha’s local favourites

For Breakfast

My wife and I stop in at Beaucoup Bakery, on the edge of Kitsilano in Vancouver, on Saturdays to split a cardamom kouign-amann and onion bacon scroll—the perfect sweet and savoury start.

For Dinner

La Buca in the Arbutus Ridge area is a cozy neighbourhood gem where the food is always thoughtful and quietly exceptional.

For Coffee

Thomas Haas’s espresso rivals any in Europe; I always go for the cappuccino.

For Drinks

The bar at Nightingale is a lively downtown spot for a perfectly made cocktail in a buzzy, double-storey space.

For the Weekend

We love to head to the Four Seasons Whistler—morning coffee at Forecast Coffee, an afternoon walk around Lost Lake and dinner at the unmatched Rimrock Café.

For a Little Longer

Tofino is the ultimate West Coast escape. A walk along Chesterman Beach is even better in the rain, with waves crashing along the shore.