In early 2011 I built a house.
Over the course of two years, a modern farmhouse was conceptualized and constructed at the top of my 12-acre vineyard to capture the stunning view of Lake Okanagan from every angle. Designed by my dear friend and architect Lucia Sakhrani of ds8.ca, the house was built by Ritchie Custom Homes of Penticton, BC. My then husband, Michael Dinn, and I actively collaborated with Lucia and Ritchie Custom Homes throughout the two-year build, and I orchestrated the interior design work.
The house was built to be both a rough-wearing home for a young family and a functional farmhouse. It was inspired by the “inside-outside” ethos of the mid-century modern architecture of southern California, South America and the Caribbean.
Travel to these places had exposed me to modern spaces that truly brought the outside in.
It was our goal to create a seamless living space that flowed throughout the home.
Gorgeous clerestory windows and large overhead fans provided non-stop natural light as well as ventilation and passive cooling in the heat of the Okanagan summer. Favourite features included a stunning kitchen and bar with “pass-through” sliding windows that gave access to a summer outdoor kitchen, wood-burning oven, bar and plunge pool.
It was a house made for entertaining and many great parties were enjoyed in this space.
The home’s high vaulted post and beam ceiling was created from 100-year old hand-notched fir. It was inspired by the Japanese vernacular of “nōka” farmhouses.
To learn more, read the article ‘Inside JoieFarm’s Rustic Modern Winery Home in Naramata’ by Western Living Magazine
Sworder House “The House that Rosé Built”.
Munson Mountain, Penticton at the mouth Naramata Bench. (12 Acres)
“I love mid-century design, but when you come right down to it, this was a farmhouse.”
Architectural Projects
Sworder House Build
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Ritchie Custom Homes, Penticton BC
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Architect Lucia Sakhrani ds8 Design, Vancouver
JoieFarm Winery Re-Build
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Ritchie Custom Homes and People Plus Space Planning & Design
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The old farmhouse at JoieFarm Winery was torn down the fall of 2016 and rebuilt with precision and speed over the winter, opening on time and on budget in April 2017 on Joie’s five acre estate vineyard.
The new tasting-room building was an efficient design, providing a much-needed, purpose-built tasting room, offices, and an apartment for staff accommodations for the winery. The building functioned as a modern guest facility, functioning both inside and out with a beautiful outdoor bar, convivial lawn area and stunning views of surrounding terroir. Much like the Sworder House, the building flowed seamlessly from the outside in. The vaulted ceilings provided a light, airy and balanced space that was an intentional, physical attempt to mirror the wines we were pouring.
The tasting-room building was built on the original site of the old Joie farmhouse. The elevation dropped significantly from the original site down to the vineyard approach to the new front door, so a stunning set of meandering poured-concrete steps were created to bridge this rise and a stunning meadow and oyster-shell bocci court helped to hide the awkward visual transition.
The building stands as a bold and playful embodiment of the joie-de-vivre from which it was created.
Naramata, British Columbia.
Snowy Peaks Renovation
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It is a rare occurrence that you can move into someone else’s home and not really change much. In 2017, after selling the Sworder House and moving back into the new apartment at the Joie property, I moved five minutes down the road, high above the Bench to a home hidden in the ponderosa forest.
I was privileged to purchase a friend’s home that, ironically, had been the inspiration for many of the elements incorporated into design of the Sworder House. The late-October day I moved in, it snowed. That heavy magical mountain snowscape stayed the entirety of that winter and the house became affectionately known as “Snowy Peaks.”
Harry and Leah Gunther were industrial and custom-home builders in Canmore, Alberta, and had built themselves a “forever home” high above Creek Park in Naramata in the 90s. This Nor-Cal vibed home had a long, winding driveway through the woods that immediately calmed you as you approached its modest entry. Harry blasted the rock himself and engineered the home to be cantilevered over the ravine with its foundation built deep into the cliff.
The house was full of gorgeous detail, including custom-milled, honeyed-oak, wide-plank flooring and custom-milled built-in library shelves. A huge lanai-style deck, accessible from eclipse doors off the kitchen, was perched above a waterfall. I literally had the soundscape of falling water 24/7 inside and out.
This home already had a well-equipped kitchen, a massive master suite with a giant walk-in closet, laundry suite and spa-like bathroom. Subtle touches included vintage widow finials from Oregon and the most perfect poured-concrete floor on the lower level that walked out to a huge and natural backyard, consistently full of a “wild kingdom” of deer, bears, great horned owls, bobcats and cougars.
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When I moved in, I painted inside and out to refresh the house and changed a few light fixtures to modernize its mood and to suit my taste.
I constructed a stunning oxidized steel hearth and fireplace surround to ground a wood-burning insert that was “floating” in the middle of the living room wall. The most utilized part of the house, especially during the Covid lockdown, were spent in front of that fireplace the beautiful and personal heart of home I dearly loved.
Two year later, I built a board-form concrete pool in the back yard, again a design-build with Ritchie Custom Homes (Harry and Leah had always intended to build a pool but never did). We also replaced the railway-tie staircase with an extensive poured-concrete staircase.
The hardscape was softened by another significant landscaping project that re-naturalized the native grasses around the pool and planted another undulating meadow of tall grasses and yarrow. A living wall was planted with other native, drought-tolerant plants. Nodding onions, California poppies and coral bells were planted into the existing retaining wall below the house to keep the pool deck cool and green.
The Snowy Peaks pool zone became the hub of summertime fun and an oasis away from a very busy life.
Smethurst Road, Naramata BC
