Exotically enough, their intent was to access the island at times to bring guests in by helicopter. Your dream and my dream and someone else’s dream might be a little bit different. It can be from a different scale, but the idea is that everyone has an inner dream that we try to to develop. You’re listening to Build the Unbuildable, a podcast about designing dream cottages on some of the most challenging sites in Ontario’s cottage country. On each episode, you’ll hear behindthe-scenes stories, practical advice, and unexpected lessons from building high-end homes in impossible places. Hello and welcome.
You are listening to Build the Unbuildable, a podcast about building high-end homes in impossible places. My name is John Tyman, and I am here with the principal of Lakeside Architecture, Mr. James Pitchpov. James, how are you doing? >> I’m doing pretty well today, John. How about yourself? >> I am doing excellent. On today’s podcast episode, we are going to be talking about the challenges of building on an island. Is it even possible? How is it possible? What do you need to consider? These are all questions that we’re going to explore on today’s podcast. So, James, are you ready to dive in? >> I’m ready for the deep dive, John. >> Dive in deep. Love it. All right. So, let’s start with the big question and then we can kind of drill down from there. So, um, if I was interested in building a cottage on a lake island, what are some of the main considerations to think about?
>> Well, John, I think that a decision to build on an island, it it’s a big decision. Um, great if you have the property. Um, there are some logistical challenges uh with it. So, one of the first uh considerations is the access and delivery of materials to an island. Not only is that a construction consideration, but in terms of of design, it it helps guide whether we are looking at alternative ways to put construction together. Are we building with panels? Are we flying material in? A lot in a lot of cases we’ll build um in the shoulder seasons. We’ll uh get materials out on an island. A lot of lakes will have uh barge services so we can build um during the summer. In the winter you can get material across the ice on the island as well. Some other considerations though are focusing on on construction season and designs that are appropriate and and fit um fit your family. There’s weather delays that can come up.
There’s uh lake conditions also in terms of being on an island. Sometimes you’re you may be in a sensitive uh site location environmentally. So sometimes there’s considerations of of uh environmental studies um uh power sources that are make sense for your site. In some cases there’s hydro lines beneath the water that there’s power already crossing a lake. Uh in in other cases the the water and the power and the septic solutions are more complex. Uh, and there are some examples of of some alternative ways to get power and um keep your systems working on an island that some viewers may not be familiar with yet. >> Interesting. So, it sounds like some of the big main considerations are access and delivery of materials to that location. So, that’s kind of like a big one. Um, and then I’m I’m curious like you mentioned building in the wintertime and building on the lake. Are you actually driving construction vehicles onto the ice? >> Yeah, that that is the case.
Um some of the basic uh construction equipment that is required would be excavators, mini excavators, skid steers, um whole rammers which are rock breakers and having the the equipment ready to go on site is is pretty important. So in most cases we’ll barge the material over. Um we can do it in the winter as well, but it all comes down to timing. I found that the summer and the winter are the time to do it. The fall and the spring have their own challenges that make it very hazardous trying to get onto an island. >> I can imagine. Yeah. All that melting ice, right? >> Well, in the spring, John, there’s the thin ice. There’s cracking ice. Getting the heavy equipment to the boat launch or shore access. Uh, a lot of the roads aren’t in full service until later in the spring. there are half load seasons uh where you’re discouraged by the municipality from getting heavy equipment even to your to your launch. So there’s some of the challenges and then in the in the fall likewise that early ice slushy uh or thin ice is pretty hazardous especially when some of the lakes have currents through them.
So it just doesn’t make sense. But we know that in the summer things are more reliable and in the winter working off the ice is can be a breeze. >> That’s really interesting. >> More of a gale at times. >> That’s that’s really interesting. So I I have I have to imagine that the ability to start a construction project or continue working in the wintertime has an impact on your construction timeline. So you don’t always have to just start in the summertime. I think that might be a misconception out there, right? Yeah, that’s a good point, John. John, as you know, um I’m a registered architect. I have two companies. One is Lakeside Architecture and the other one is the construction management side, which is Lakeside Construction Management. By developing uh experience and expertise in both over the years, um I know that a well planned project might take about 4 to 6 months to plan. It can go up to 10 or 11 months for documentation. There’s always changes. there’s approvals.
So very quickly you can commit a year into really strong planning. Then in terms of of construction, 10 months, 12 months, 14 months, 16 months, houses are getting more complex, cottages are getting more complex, and the time span from the beginning of the project to occupancy, it could be up to two years for a very unique special property. So, the timing um we are, uh just out of necessity, we need to make use of all seasons. A lot of homeowners will come to me in the fall looking to develop plans over the over the winter, but by the time you break ground, you might be into the fall. So, chances are you could be working out in the elements right into the the following winter. >> And so, I guess that’s why it’s really important to be adaptable and to have to understand how to handle each of those seasons when construction begins.
Yeah, that’s right. And to to make use and and benefit from the time between the seasons as well to do design and specifying of materials and sourcing all the best materials, we need to be resourceful with a calendar over a time span of of 12 to probably 12 to 20 months in most cases for a unique custom place. >> Okay. So, let’s let’s talk a little bit more about the um environmental impact and considerations when building on an island, I guess. What are some of the the common um challenges of environmental challenges of building on an island? >> Well, there are a couple. Now, a lot of the uh projects that I design and then uh build are on are um located on lakes that may have one or two of two conditions. So, a lot of the lakes that are they’re mostly in Canadian shield cottage country. A lot of them have deep water nearby which means lake trout. Any sort of siltation particularly in the summer when the warm marines come down and and the the sediment ends up in the lake has a very delletterious effect on lake trout and their spawning. So that is one of the one of the uh things that we have to um safeguard against is siltation of the water for the lake trout.
Now on the other hand they are cold water fish and they need their cold oxygenated water to remain pure. On the other hand uh a lot of island and lakefront properties might have wetlands adjacent to them and that of course is where the the bass spawn bass and other fish are spawning. There’s amphibians in there. There’s water snakes. There’s a whole ecosystem in these back wetlands that people might not be aware of. And the issue there is not disrupting the bottom during the summer construction season. If you’re barging through the wetlands, chances are you’re running over the nests of frogs and fish and and and snakes and all that. So th those are those are two of the considerations. The third consideration that people may not know about is in these rich lake environments, a lot of times there are birds that are using the island habitat either for nesting or passing through migration. Uh there’s bats as well to consider.
So there’s a whole range of environmental considerations. And what I do, John, on every project is I’ll work with environmental consultants and then we’ll develop uh not only uh environmental impact statement, but we’ll do studies that will identify the sensitive areas um for migration for nesting particularly sort of an inventory of wildlife and protection to wildlife and fish that need protection. and then we’ll develop a plan to mitigate those concerns. And it’s gone to some extent in some extent when we felt that we were somewhat diminishing um garder snake habitat. We actually built a hibernacula. That’s my big word for today. The hibernacular for snakes, which offset any potential loss of of habitat. And the the municipalities love those type of of measures when they’re issuing site plan approvals. >> Very very interesting.
Can you give any other examples of maybe maybe more so on the construction management side understanding those kind of like those species and their habitats and the importance of that to the ecosystem? Can you give an example of how you you might adapt your construction process to be sensitive to those environments? >> Well, John, that is a great great question. So when we’re building in a new environment and and we really are in a um a a new unconstrained um setting when we’re out on the islands and a lot of times some of the islands properties are they’re a little bit wider too. So we have more opportunities on how we lay out our our buildings and our construction than we would for example in in the city. So, one of the questions that I’ll ask clients is the the question of footprint and the question of foundations and footings. If you’re building a uh a cottage with a big footprint, do you really need the same type of foundations and basement that you would have in the city? It’s problematic because it takes up a big footprint on site.
It can require site excavation which is very disruptive to the microecology of the site. On some of the sites there are skinks which are rare uh Ontario’s only lizard species and is very rare and they’re common in the southern part of the Canadian shield. It just doesn’t make sense to excavate and blast and build giant foundations. So I asked clients whether they would consider building a footprint that is broken down into parts almost like pavilions a great way to have a very flexible layout on a site and why can’t we put a structure on peers gets it gets it off the ground animal migration I would call them micro migrations it’s where the snapping turtles pass to go to lay their eggs and the snakes and birds and so on let’s build in a way that’s less destructive to the site And it actually ends up in better design because then you get lighter structures that are more flexible, more opportunities to adapt to views and so on. It’s good for the wildlife. It and it’s it’s good for um for clients as well. >> Awesome. Those are some those are some great examples. Thank you for sharing. >> Thank you. >> Let’s talk about power. So are are you laying out like solar power? You talked about underground cables that bring power.
What are some common challenges and then solutions for powering a lakeside cottage on an island? >> Well, there’s there’s a couple of there’s a couple of scenarios that that pop up. So, one scenario is when you’re on on one of the big lakes and that are established and a lot of them will have the underwire copper cable from uh ages uh past already accessing onto onto an island. For heating systems, um in a lot of cases, we’ll use traditional systems which are basic. The basic workhorse of cottage country of course has always been propane forced air. However, these days um almost exclusively now a lot most of the designs are going with with geothermal systems. In some cases we’re putting uh loops into the into the lake. And the way these systems works, John, is there will be uh boilers and that are that these loops are are running to. And the way the boiler works is the boiler will condense the fluids in the pipes.
When you condense the fluids from even fairly cool water, the cool water in the lake, even in the winter, it’s a minimum of 4 Celsius. So there’s always a little bit of latent heat in there. John, if you condense it in a boiler, when you compress that water, it actually releases a lot of heat. So, that’s the way these systems work. We’ll run hydronic tubes where which are basically plastic tubes inside a poured concrete floor. Sometimes there’s quarry stone on top. Sometimes it’s polished concrete. very interesting, beautiful ways to do floors, but fundamentally they’re working off of boilers and condensing condensing the heat and and distributing it. So, that is one way of doing it. In most cases, there’s bedrock, so we’re not really digging down. However, if the bedrock’s a little bit deeper, you don’t need to run the tubes in the water. You can run them in trenches above the bedrock as long as there’s a few feet of cover over them. And then if there are pits in the bedrock or you’re in a more southern area, we can drill down in wells uh as well. So those are the basic systems that that we’re working with. We haven’t really been doing a lot of like completely offgrid systems. Some of those systems like wind power and solar power, I found that they’re great as supplemental power systems. They’re not super practical, and viewers may correct me if they’ve had better experiences with them, but for example, solar power, a lot of the time in the winter, it’s cloudy half the time.
There isn’t a lot of sun getting on the panels, and there is just so much snow here in Ontario. No matter how you arrange these things, they’re going to be covered with snow a lot of the time, which is pro problematic. So, that’s that’s one of the way of doing things. Wind power might be interesting in some locations. If you’re on the Great Lakes, if you’re out on Lake Hiron, Georgian Bay, Prescale, you’re on the the facing the open west water, you could probably do all right, but I would consider it supplemental power. Now one of the interesting projects that that I’m working on right now is we are actually on a river system which has a good steady flow of water and we are talking with consultants about the use of of micro hydro to now to supplement the uh existing power systems. So there are some opportunities to to try some alternative systems. Usually it’s a combination. John, >> that’s so fascinating.
So fascinating. There’s still a lot of different options for powering a lakeside cottage. There is, you know, I think that that might be one kind of misconception or something that folks might not know is there are, you know, a lot of different options available and then there is there are ways to supplement that power. So, very cool. >> Yeah. And John, it it depends. Um, different clients will use their cottage for longer, shorter periods over the course of the the the seasons. So, if a cottage is going to be a home and it’s going to be used 52 weekends of the year, it may have one set of requirements. If a cottage is a threeseason cottage, well, the options open up and it’s still a long cottaging season and it it allows us to entertain a wider range of of uh energy solutions. >> Well, James, um I think so those were some great questions. Thank you so much for answering that. you know, what should folks know before building a cottage on an island? Specifically, we talked about access and delivery. We talked about the impact on construction timelines. We talked about environmental impact. Talked about utilities and systems. So, let’s shift to the next segment of our episode today, the Bass Island Cottage. >> Um, >> ah, yes.
So, what I’ll do, James, is I’m going to share my screen here, and you’ve got um a bunch of beautiful pictures on your website. Um folks that are watching this, go to lakeside architecture.ca and then check out the be inspired section of the website and you’ll see all sorts of different projects from Lakeside Architecture, beautiful photographs. Um and I think I think there may be some videos too that people can check out. there are I realized pretty early in my career that there are challenges and opportunities that are really unique and and can be very um rewarding on on waterfront properties. Um and this is a good example here of building in a difficult to access location. Various views were possible. Various construction methods. Um, so I’ll I’ll lay it out for you. Um, Bass Island is located on Lake Mskoka. It’s not that far from Walker’s Point. A lot of people when they’re boating on the lake, they’ll be passing by it. I’ll tell you right away, this is one of these projects that you either love or you hate. And um, it’s received a lot of surprisingly, it’s received a lot of press. It’s been on um, in uh, the uh, Toronto uh, design magazines.
It’s been in West of the City, Toronto Life. It was on the national post. It gets the attention of a lot of people. And what I’d like to do is like I’d like to present the ideas that come from it that may be transferable to other projects. Whether or not a person would follow the exact cues on this type of design. Um it might be more productive if we look at what is possible in this modern way of building remotely on the island. It’s a 14 acre island. They they are very remote. um and they needed a fully managed design and approach to to building on the island. The actual cottage, it started off at a pretty large 4,000 square ft. It has grown over time. The thing to to know though is that it is built in a way that it is the intent was to be um multi-generational and to be able to be built in stages so that they can share it with extended family. So that’s the reasoning behind the large footprint. The access is by boat. The owner um also exotically enough their intent was to access the island at times to bring guests in by helicopter. So this is the dream.
This isn’t everyday construction. This isn’t renovation or or the build like this is what it’s all about. Your dream and my dream and someone else’s dream might be a little bit different. It can be from a different scale. But the idea is that everyone has an inner dream that we try to to develop. Now they took their cues or we took our cues from the the terrorists bedrock on the island. Now there was an existing cottage there that was right adjacent to the water. It’s only 20 ft from the water. They we managed to get them a planning approval based on being building over that footprint and then building back away from it. And the idea was to build in terraces that would have the living room and kitchen on one level, bedroom set back on a second level, guest rooms on a third level. And originally the idea was that if you’re familiar with it, the project the the approach would be similar to Frank Lloyd Rice’s falling water at Bear Run, Pennsylvania.
Basically what he did was he built over a waterfall in terraces. Now, you can’t see it from these photos, but when you’re inside, these levels pretty much look over the lake in a very unobstructed way. So, the idea was a to have a structure, heavy Douglas fur timbers, a lot of clear glass, the windows pull back, and you have 100% openings to the lake. Now, a lot of people will say, “This is way too modern, you know, for our taste and this is not what we’re used to and so on, which which is a valid thing.” There a lot of strengths with traditional design that that has a lower scale perhaps and and um has some of the older style porches and breezeways and all that. That is great. The interesting thing about this project though is when you’re inside and you open the windows, all you see is the lake. So, with a modern design, you can get rid of a lot of the the visual clutter and have more of a direct view to your your surroundings. Um, some of the like you if you look at the facade of the building, you can take a small part of it and you can see how you could take this large structure, pull off a chunk of it, perhaps that can be your 1,200 or 1,800T cottage or 2,000 foot cottage is more of a system than anything.
Now, some of my uh influences, I would say, they’ve always been Canadian architects, of course, and I’ve been drawn to the work of um iconic West Coast architects such as Arthur Ericson. You can look up the work that he’s done out in uh uh Vancouver. Also, Ron Tom was an iconic Canadian architect that did a lot of work in North Vancouver. Basically, they were working with with natural materials in these settings. Now the owners in this case there were world travelers um very successful world travelers. So their tastes were a little bit different and having visited a lot of very elegant modern um hotels and and beautiful homes and resorts around the world. They wanted to go a little bit more modern with with the finishes which is very interesting when you actually see it in person. Um, what I would suggest to to viewers is you can take the idea of of building on levels on your landscape and shifting things around to accommodate the views. And you can go with different materials. Currently, I’m building all in Douglas fur, clear glass.
I’m starting to use C10 steel, which is naturally rusting metal materials that actually they they fit in with the landscape and they look they actually look better as they age. They just get better looking. So that’s the idea. We’re building on the water, big open views, and you can take it where you want to take it. Do you want to be go super modern? The advantage is very clean, austere, light settings, very light and airy. Do you want to go more rugged? The advantage is those big Douglas fur timbers, reclaimed hemlock, quarry stone. It really gives you a feeling of connection to to the land. So that was the angle on it and we let it go develop where it did based on the cues from the client. At the end of the day, John, I’m there to develop your ideas. I guide. I don’t dictate the design and we take our cues from the site.
>> And that’s a great point. Um, James is that you and you offer a a design your dream home guide to your prospective clients who want to help kind of understand their dream and put their dream into words so that you can best help them. Can you share with folks how they can access that guide? >> Yeah. Um, that guide it can be accessed through our website if you uh just hit uh lakesidearchitecture.ca. Design your dream home guide. It developed out of the necessity to um get the client’s ideas focused in a format that we could start discuss um productive creative discussions with. So my my approach is that the expert on the site, it’s the owners, it’s the clients because they live it, they know the lifestyle. Typically, they will have very strong ideas.
And what we want to do is we want to take the basic ideas how they live, how they easily use the properties. In a lot of cases, cottagers have been cottaging for generations, sometimes on the same property, sometimes multiple places on a similar property. And the idea is to take that that that history that knowledge of the site of the site and to develop it not just in terms of a cottage or design but in terms of socially who uses the cottage, when do they use it? Is it big groupings, small groupings? Are there friends coming, family, a lot of kids, older people that have may have access issues? And we like to get that out of the book right away. And um we like to hear about the the the client’s musthaves. Some it’s just they’re visual exercises just to communicate the style expectations on how the site’s going to be used. Questions of should we start using would we use it in the winter? You know, would we go up? Would we go snowmobiles? Would we try something different? Are we going to be Boers or do we like to play cards and play badminton um in the back or or people have tennis courts and um sometimes people just have a dock, not just docks are beautiful. They have docks, they’ll have a boat house. It’s great to sort that all out. And what it does is when we when um clients or anyone that’s interested, you get onto that PDF. It’s going to save you time and it’s going to save you headaches. My my role is to take your basic ideas and start that process. That process isn’t it’s not entirely simple. It it’s there to help develop ideas, but we need a place to start. So, we start there. And I ask clients for their scrapbooks, stuff they’ve got online, ideas on house.com, or any number of numerous websites that have interesting ideas.
At the end of the day though, your design will be very custom and we have to develop it independently. One the the way that I work John that your viewers might be interested in is I’ve started to work a lot in 3D because I realize now that we need to work in sync and it’s not great for the designer or the architect to go off on a tangent and design something for 8 or 12 weeks and not be hearing the client. So what we do is we take the ideas, we start modeling in 3D. I’ll get clients on the Zoom and we’re designing live like now it’s live. So if you come to me and you’ve got your great modern idea and we have like some early mo some early thoughts about an open space and maybe it it has canal levers over approaching the water or different views. I like to get that down in 3D modeling and then we start to tweak it and we can drag and drop different windows and rooms and orientation and flip things and then go check it on the site. This is the way that that is productive that people really love. And it all starts with that design guide on lakeside architecture.ca. >> What I love about this, James, is you can’t design your dream home without communicating your dream. And that dream home guide is a way for clients to communicate that dream to you.
I love the fact that you’re using 3D modeling because that creates an instant feedback loop that clients are able to see with their eyes um in a three-dimensional way. They’re not just looking at site plans or they’re not just hearing the vision, they’re seeing it. They’re putting themselves in there virtually. Um so I think that’s that’s fantastic. And folks that want to learn more about that design guide, go to lakesidearchchitecture.ca. CA James, before we before we break this episode, I’ve got one one last question for you. >> Do you have a burning question there, John? >> We’re looking right now at the Bass Island cottage on Lakeside Architecture.ca. And you mentioned that the original owners of this cottage wanted to have access via helicopter. Where on the island is do they land the helicopter? >> That’s a great question, John. You have a look at that aerial photo and if you look at the building right on top of the building that was the spot there you you would land directly you take your vas coming in internationally to Toronto and then you fly up to your to your dream island and the entertainment begins. >> Excellent. Well, James, this has been a fantastic conversation. I learned a ton about what it takes to build a cottage on an island. I’m sure our listeners have as well. Um, if you’re listening to this and want to learn more, go to lakesidearchchitecture.ca. And thank you for listening to Build the Unbuildable, a podcast about building high-end homes in impossible places.
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