The owner’s tour | The unusual suburb of Rosemère

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

Valerie Simard
The Press

This is not the typical suburban home. Far from the street, out of sight, a roof with inverted slopes and no basement to boot! Designed by its owner, an architect by profession, in the early 2000s, this residence encapsulates the dream of an urban family who (temporarily) traded the city for the suburbs.

Christian Bisson, his spouse and their two children (they now have three) lived in a Montreal triplex when the call of the suburbs and its green courtyards was heard. These two natives of the northern suburbs found land in Rosemère, south of Highway 640, with a pretty wood in the back frequented by birds, groundhogs, foxes and rabbits.

“Rosemère is a beautiful city, it’s a city that meets the true definition of the suburbs,” remarks Christian Bisson. There are trees for real. You are like between the countryside and the city. »

Warm interior

On this land blessed by the absence of neighbors in the back, they put the house of their dreams. A resolutely modern residence for a time when contemporary architecture in Quebec did not benefit from the influence it has today. But a residence that also moves away from minimalist interiors of immaculate white. Their own interior, they had decided, would be warm.

A desire that was expressed by the structural beams in exposed Douglas fir, by the cedar and maple of the staircase and the walkway as well as by the slate that covers the long fireplace mantel and part of the ground floor floor.

“What inspired me a lot in the past was the architecture of the West Coast,” adds the man who specializes in institutional architecture. California, Washington State and British Columbia, they were quite dominant in architecture. To this aesthetic of the Pacific, for his first signature house, he married that of Rosemère. “In Rosemère, cedar clapboard is used quite a bit. The horizontality, the houses a bit like Frank Lloyd Wright, the presence of large fireplaces, the low roof slopes too, but I expressed them by volumes where they go inwards rather than outwards . »

“People in the neighborhood don’t tell us directly, but we know she likes or dislikes! »

To get away from Rue de Rosemère, which is busy at rush hour, the owners set their house back and opted for a facade with few windows. It is rather towards the courtyard that the openings unfold allowing the inhabitants to be in contact with the outside. A desire that also led them to give up the sacrosanct basement, a decision offset by the development of a games room on the ground floor. “We wanted to be in contact with the ground. I didn’t want to have a house that was elevated above its land. “A choice they have never regretted despite the complaints that emanated from their children once they became teenagers.

Lots of space

They nevertheless benefit from a certain intimacy since they live in their own wing upstairs. The parents’ bedroom is separated by a walkway. In 2012, a fourth bedroom was added upstairs, allowing the development of an office in the one on the ground floor.

Today, that’s a lot of space for a family whose children have partially left the nest and that’s what leads them to leave not only this house, but also Rosemère, to return to Montreal. “We still remained attached to life in the city,” says Christian Bisson. “Here, there are small businesses, but you always have to take your car,” adds his wife. There are paradoxes in there: it’s very green, but you need your car [sauf pour la gare de train, située à une quinzaine de minutes à pied]. »

“We really liked living here,” she adds. We are really privileged to have been able to conceptualize our house. And frankly, we don’t have many faults to say to him! This chance, they will also have it for their next project which is in progress and in which they should move in at the end of the year.