URBAN LIVING: COTTAGE LIFE, CITY ADDRESS

A few years ago, Mischa Couvrette took a mood-boosting jog by the Humber River, near the South Kingsway.  

Trotting by tall trees along the water was rejuvenating for Couvrette. This was during lockdown and the founder of Hollis+Morris, a studio that produces modern handcrafted lighting and furniture, was tired of being cooped up. Compared to Roncesvalles, where he and his wife Alison, a psychotherapist, lived with their two young kids, the craggy terrain felt like the country.  

The couple had discussed decamping from the city. “I wanted to move outside of it,” says Couvrette. “Alison wanted to stay. This was the perfect option for both of us.”  

As luck would have it, two months later he spotted a For Sale sign on another Swansea run. It was the worst house on the best street, and in real-estate terms, that’s ideal. So the couple bought it.  

“It’s a small plot of land with 55 trees on it. It felt like we were at a cottage,” says Couvrette of the home he toured with his long-time friend, the architect Jonathan Mandeville. Formerly of Halifax-based Passage Studio (with Thomas Evans), Mandeville is now Hollis+Morris’s design director. He designed the studio’s vast showroom near the Junction, and was enlisted to work his magic on the 3,300-square-foot house.  

The friends share an affinity for quiet, material-forward spaces uneclipsed by fussy embellishment. Such spaces are connected to nature. Wood might be the star, providing layered texture — as captivating ridged detailing on the base of kitchen island, perhaps. Or as an expanse of uninterrupted marble in the kitchen. Both examples play out in Couvrette’s home. 

Initially, the plan for the house was to renovate it. “But we realized it was so neglected, we had to tear it down to the foundation,” says Couvrette. “We kept the same floorplan and repurposed the foundation, so as not to disturb the ecological ravine topography.” 

He adds, “John and I are hugely influenced by Atlantic architecture, like Saunders Architecture and (Brian) MacKay-Lyons as well as Scandinavian architects, so the outside of this home has a strong utilitarian presence that withstands the environment.”  

Ensconced under tall trees and tucked into a small hill, the two-storey new-build is confidently minimalistic: a simple gable form topped with a metal roof and clad in bands of hemlock from New Brunswick. (It was built by Sierra Custom Homes.) 

“We chose hemlock for several   reasons, such as its beautiful colour and grain, but also because we could source long boards,” says Mandeville. “We wanted to treat the wood like it was a precious material, so we elevated its expression by only having clear grain, full-length boards.”  

Offering subdued contrast are silvery anodized aluminium windows from Loewen that are Douglas Fir indoors. Box Design fashioned the exterior, including the landscaping, and is also behind the white-oak kitchen. 

Doubling down on coziness, the interior is a love letter to wood. “We wanted it to be Scandinavian — really soft and warm and welcoming and calming,” says Couvrette. Enveloping it in wood from top to bottom creates a shipshape feel. Not by accident. In Couvrette’s feral Dalhousie University days, he and three friends overhauled a jalopy boat, sailing it to Guatemala, and he wanted a sense of the nautical in this home.  

The common theme of natural white oak throughout the home, says Couvrette, is indeed everywhere: on a bathroom vanity and the walls, a built-in bench, the doors, the staircase (save for the incredible continuous metal railing wrapping around it), the Moncer flooring, in light fixtures  and furniture like the coffee and dining table, and the couple’s platform bed. 

“The palette is super simple but luxurious — never glossy,” Couvrette points out. “It’s something we’ve done as a company: always matte. We want the texture and the materiality to shine through.”  

“Though monochromatic, there are moments that pop,” says Couvrette. “We stumbled upon 10 sheets of marble and it was such a good deal, we bought them.” The backsplash stone perfectly transitioned into the countertops and there’s not a seam in sight. “If you have no uppers, the kitchen doesn’t feel like a kitchen,” he says. “We went as far as not even putting a hood over the stove for that reason.” Instead, an integrated downdraft table mechanically rises behind the stovetop.  

Traditionally, marble is book-matched but “I don’t like it. It looks like a Rorschach blotch,” says Couvrette. “We spent hours with the marble slabs so they all run seamlessly together.”  

Such exertions seem to be Couvrette’s thing. Even the 120-inch-long island made by Emily Falconer of Box Design was an ordeal. “There are 370 half dowels that wrap entirely around it. It’s a huge piece, it’s like a piece of furniture, and was painstakingly built,” he says.  

Ditto the wood-insert Stûv fireplace from Marsh’s Stoves & Fireplaces. “We had to build out an area from outside of the house so it’s seamless. Otherwise you’d end up with mantels,” says Couvrette. The payoff is a peaceful, continuous wall.  

In terms of light quality, there was no chance Couvrette would stipple the ceiling in pot lights. Only 12 of them figure in this project, when typically a house of this size would have 100, he says.  

“At night, I prefer the decorative fixture to work as a functional fixture as well,” says Couvrette.  

And those lights placed just-so are quiet dazzlers: by the sinewy Riverside Sofa by Hollis+Morris sits the Willow Floor Light resembling giant glowing peas on a vine.  

Nods to nature appear throughout: In the dining and living room, floor-to-ceiling windows offer a clear view to the site’s many trees. “The bark and leaves become part of the palette,” says Mandeville, “which is nice, because then it feels like the house is changing with the seasons.” 

2025-05-01T12:27:17Z