From Condemned to Cosy

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The Beach Strip
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Posted with full permission from the Hamilton Spectator

Nov.13, 01:03 EDT

From condemned to cosy
Beach Strip home was given new life by a talented couple
Suzanne Bourret
The Hamilton Spectator

When artists Cora and Eric Brittan look at Edgewater Cottage, they see an impossible dream come true. They turned a derelict house on the Beach Strip, into a family home that has become a gallery for their many paintings.

They found the 1895 house in 1977 on an exquisite property overlooking Lake Ontario. It was a wreck with a definite lean.

"We bought it because of the property," says Cora, "It is interesting that this little house has gone from condemned to cosy."

The house became a work in progress after the couple and their four daughters moved in in 1979.

Eric worked with two framers who took it down to its shell. Then he built the interior by himself. After two years, the couple had an almost new, two-storey house.

The girls shared one big room on the second floor. The spacious main floor, with its pine floors, was divided into a family room, a galley-style kitchen with pine counters and an open concept dining room and sunroom that are used as a gallery and studio for Cora's art classes.

When their daughters moved on, Cora and Eric created separate studios on the second floor. A room off the kitchen serves as a gallery and guest room.

From the deck, they can see the Toronto skyline and as far as Winona and Grimsby. Cora and Eric can relax in the hot tub on a plant-filled enclosed patio.

The home's decor is an eclectic mix of interesting finds from a year in India and travels to Mexico, where they often go to sketch, paint, sculpt and collect ideas. Bright bottles and plants line the windowsills and colourful fish hang upside down from the sunroom ceiling, reflecting the couple's quirky sense of humour. Cora displays blue and brown Mexican pottery on open shelves in the kitchen.

"It's been an inspirational place to live," says Eric, who teaches painting at Sheridan College. "It's like living in the country with a lake and you're 10 minutes from everything."

The lake has been his inspiration for light-filled, pure and spare paintings. Cora's plants have also inspired him.

Cora's paintings of ethereal women spirits, as well as her whimsical frog, goose and newt, hang in their own gallery off the dining room.

The Brittans' sixth annual studio open house is today and tomorrow, at 5 Sierra Lane, off Beach Boulevard, from 11 a.m.to 4 p.m.

Cora has done calligraphy and decoration for a 2005 calendar for Toronto's Sick Children's Hospital which will be available at Toronto's One of a Kind Show, Nov. 30 to Dec. 5, at the National Trade Centre, Exhibition Place. She also will be exhibiting paintings at the show. Their website is brittanart.com.

sbourret@thespec.com

905-526-3305

Photos by Cathie Coward, the Hamilton Spectator


Photo 1/ The house has many places to relax.

Photo 2/ The Brittans' eclectic style incorporates items from their travels.

Photo 3/ The dining room displays Cora Brittan's art and is used for classes.
 
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