The owner’s tour | The cutie from Lac-Brome

Owners open the doors of their exceptional homes to us, offered on the resale market.

Francine Ruel was already living in the picturesque village of Knowlton, in Estrie, when she acquired, in 2009, this house at 25 Grove Street, on the shores of Brome Lake. In a quiet, wooded neighborhood nicknamed Conference, “the Westmount of Estrie”. “When I entered, I had the impression that two arms were hugging me,” says the actress and writer. It was a real crush. I kept saying, “Oh yes, this is my place!” »

The three-story house, named Eden Roc, was built in 1969 on a rock outcropping. Nantucket architectural style, it has a living area of ​​nearly 4,000 sq. ft.^⁠2. With 16 rooms, including 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. “The property will be suitable for a small family of three or four people, because as there are three floors, we are isolated from each other,” says Francine Ruel. The master bedroom is on the ground floor with its bathroom. And upstairs there are two more bedrooms with a bathroom. »

Francine Ruel spent 15 years in this house, the time to write seven novels there. And to arrange it to his taste. In 2009, everything was brown inside. “I had all the walls painted white. » The interior is therefore very bright (with many windows and bay windows) and warm. “It gives the impression of a country or seaside house,” she says.

The roof is made of asphalt shingles and the cedar siding was painted an elegant bluish gray. The interior decoration was carried out by his partner, Maddia Esquerre, a painter and decorator of Basque origin specializing in trompe-l’oeil. The kitchen, with its beautiful timbered ceiling, is decorated with handmade designs, like the ceramic tiles in the two bathrooms. The writer has created her office on the garden level. “A great place for all four seasons, the interior being air-conditioned in the summer,” she says.

Francine Ruel also landscaped her entire 41,000 sq. ft. plot of land^⁠2. “There we see it less, of course, but in summer it’s exceptional,” she says. I planted two weeping willows, oaks, a magnolia and a ginkgo biloba, installed flower beds and organized a vegetable garden. We cleared four tons of rocks one summer to create a Japanese garden where a gazebo serves as our summer lounge. »

From the house, you go down a hill and in five minutes you arrive at a beach on Lake Brome, where you can swim. But the property has an in-ground pool, so we have a choice! Francine Ruel also had the entire property fenced last year to prevent deer from entering. “We could sometimes have a dozen deer in the afternoon,” she said. They carry the ticks that transmit Lyme disease. That’s how I caught it. » After being very ill and having undergone months of antibiotic therapy, the artist regained his health and the pleasure of returning to the stage (in the play To insanity, presented at the end of February in LaSalle and at the beginning of March in Thetford Mines and Sainte-Marie-de-Beauce). And ticks are no longer welcome on his land!

Aged 75, the Quebec artist regrets no longer being able to get down on her knees to do her garden. “It’s a property that requires maintenance and I want to sit down and relax a little!” So we found another house, with just a closed courtyard. But we’re going to shed a lot of tears when we leave Eden Roc, because it’s a little paradise. »