Home design: “It’s truly a beach house” 

The home’s slatted upper storey echoes its wooded surroundings.  Photo by Doublespace Photography

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This intricately designed house by Williamson Williamson Inc. overlooking the Scarborough Bluffs is flooded with light in the daytime and, when the moon is full, into the night.  

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According to principal architect Betsy Williamson, the homeowners — an artist and the head of scenic design for the National Ballet of Canada, and a senior manager for one of Canada’s largest construction firms — had some well-formed ideas of what they wanted their home to be like. But they also gave the architects a free hand to explore ideas about light, materiality, and both interior and exterior views. 

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“They had a particular interest in the aesthetic properties of concrete, steel and wood, all materials they use in their work, and they instinctively understood our drawings and models.”  

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Instead of rooms and walls, the interior was designed around views and the transfer of light. Photo by  Doublespace Photography 

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The site, located on the tableland set back from the crest of a 300-foot drop to Lake Ontario, was especially evocative. Until the 1960s, the Bluffs escarpment had been eroding at the rate of a metre per year. At that time, fearing the eventual loss of the formation, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) stepped in and planted the cliffs thickly. To this day, the TRCA closely manages the area, providing stewardship and working closely with residents and architects of new homes like this one, balancing responsible construction with protecting the site. 

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The design that Betsy devised with her partner, Shane Williamson, and their team features attention to interior as well as exterior views; variations in floor and ceiling levels; a minimum of walls and enclosures; and a series of floor-to-roof “light monitors” that open the house to the sunlight, supplemented by  other clever ways to illuminate the interior. 

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Two of the main “light monitors” — floor-to-ceiling columns of light — illuminate the house from roof to floor and front to back. Photo by Doublespace Photography 

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The slatted Douglas-fir cladding of the upper storey is a Modernist echo of the woods surrounding the house; its swath of front windows also features wooden slats that can be fully opened and closed — which makes them almost disappear —or angled just enough to let in light while maintaining privacy. 

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Down on the main level, the concrete floor suggests the greyish clay soil of the Bluffs themselves. Details that arose as part of the floor’s fabrication impart a muscular beauty, including the imprint of the forms used when the material was poured, the regularly spaced holes of the wall ties, and natural imperfections in the concrete.  

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A north-facing clerestory sends light cascading over the artist’s studio, without the glare that more direct lighting such as a skylight can produce. Photo by Doublespace Photography

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Under the cantilevered overhang of the carport, the reeded glass front door is part of a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows that opens into the front vestibule. Inside and to the right, just past a powder room with a vanity fashioned from two marble cubes, the dining room is illuminated by the first and largest of the light monitors: an expansive opening that soars the full height of the house to a clerestory window some 26 feet above.  

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Straight ahead, the main staircase, furnished with open risers that let the light shine through, rises to the art studio on the right; to the left, a bridge overlooking the dining room below leads to the primary suite at the back. Straight ahead, past a large still life of the Bluffs painted by the owner, are the home office, guest room and the slatted front windows.