42.9486° N · 81.4256° W

Kilworth · On the Thames

Built from the landit sits on.

A custom riverfront estate on nine-plus acres of the Thames — drawn from reclaimed timber, Owen Sound stone, and ash milled from its own trees.

Komoka, OntarioEst. 2011Designed by Barry Wade

Scroll

Chapter One

The Land

Nine-plus acres above the Thames — six wooded, three of parkland around a spring-fed pond. A private stretch of river to fish, kayak, and walk. Deer, wild turkey, eagles and red-tailed hawks keep the property; white pines have held this ground for a generation. It is the one thing no architect can draw and no budget can build.

Acreage

Wooded

6 ac

Parkland

3 ac

Frontage

Thames

Six wooded acres · three of parkland

Chapter Two

The Arrival

The craft is legible before you reach the door.

Two laneways climb between armour-stone walls to a facade of natural Owen Sound stone, copper that will weather for a century, and an Enviroshake roof projected to stand a hundred years. Wide covered porches wrap the house — front and side — set on stone columns under timber.

Oversized Loewen windows and nine-foot doors return the river to nearly every room; the approach drive is heated concrete. Nothing here is standard issue.

II · The Arrival

Stone steps · armour-stone walls

Covered porch · stone & timber

On the Thames

Nine acres along the river.

Private frontage on the Thames is almost never offered here — most of the river is public land, or glimpsed from a road. At 10955 Old River Road, more than nine acres of it are yours: a long, quiet run of moving water held inside your own treeline.

Eighteen-foot barrel-vaulted great room

Ash ceilings, milled on the property

Walnut island · Viking suite

Italian travertine & plank oak

01 / 04

III

The House

The structure

Beams that carried a city.

The timber overhead was reclaimed from the Toronto subway and a British Columbia railway trestle, sourced and built by The Great Lakes Frame Company to carry a new house. An eighteen-foot barrel vault crowns the great room.

The ceilings

Cut from this ground.

The ash ceilings were milled from trees that grew on the property and finished by the builder's own carpenter — a house quite literally made from its own land.

The kitchen

A walnut centre of gravity.

A solid walnut island anchors a full Viking suite — a forty-eight-inch dual-oven range in custom cabinetry, a walk-through butler's pantry behind with laundry on the main floor, and a custom one-hundred-and-seventy-gallon aquarium built into the great-room cabinetry.

The finishes

Travertine, oak, and stone underfoot.

Italian Ocean Silver travertine, five-inch plank oak, and ceramic run underfoot throughout. Solid eight-foot doors, crown moulding, and custom beamed ceilings in the lower level. A home detailed to the millimetre.

Beyond the great room

An office to the trees, a lower level made for gathering.

Office with forest views — The office, to the trees

Main-floor laundry — Laundry, on the main floor

Lower level billiards — Lower level — billiards

Hydraulic elevator — Federal Panorama hydraulic elevator

Built-in aquarium — Custom 170-gallon aquarium, built into the great-room cabinetry

The Materials

Materials with a history.

Timber

Reclaimed

The beams overhead carried the Toronto subway and a British Columbia railway trestle before The Great Lakes Frame Company re-milled them for this house — a century of grain no order form can reproduce.

Stone

Owen Sound

Natural stone, hand-selected from the Niagara Escarpment, drawn across the facade and into a dual hearth that opens from the covered terrace straight through to the great room.

Ash

From the land

The ceilings were milled from ash that grew on this property and finished by hand. The house wears the wood of its own ground.

Chapter Four

The Life

Mornings begin on your own water — a line cast, a kayak pushed into the current, deer and eagles working the far bank. Nine private acres where the loudest thing is the river. Indoors, the house bends to the life: four bedrooms, a dedicated office to the trees, and a home gym; a finished lower level for billiards and company; five fireplaces and geothermal warmth underfoot. A secure room for what matters, a hydraulic elevator, and Crestron quietly running the rest. Cottage and custom home — one address, every season.

Your own river · five fireplaces