This article was published more than 6 years ago. Some information may no longer be current.
3121 Theatre Rd. N., Hamilton Township, Ont.
ASKING PRICE $3.5-million
TAXES $14,596.00
LOT SIZE 10 acres
AGENTS Dee McGee, Patrick McGee and Tina Hubicki, Chestnut Park Real Estate Ltd.
The backstory
Lori and Bob Dodd made their escape from the big city in 1990, when they moved from the Riverdale neighbourhood in Toronto to Port Hope, Ont.
The couple had one small child and another on the way. They had never lived in a small town before. Port Hope is just a little over an hour east of Toronto, but people pleaded with them to stay.
"Our friends all said there's no way you're going to survive out there," Ms. Dodd recalls.
The two were drawn to the topography of the town on the shore of Lake Ontario, just south of the rolling farmland of Northumberland County. Ms. Dodd appreciated the historic buildings and the town library.
"We fell in love with Port Hope," she says.
The couple agreed that they would try out their new lifestyle while they raised their two little ones and added a third.
"We said, 'If we like it here, we'll build our dream house," Ms. Dodd says.
The family moved into their home after 14 months of construction.
After a couple of years, they began the search for a larger property outside of town. Ms. Dodd visited one homestead on about 50 acres set on a ridge. It had wonderful views, but it was very windy, she says. Driving back, she noticed a for-sale sign on a parcel of land.
She hopped the fence and walked up a wooded slope.
"It has a view, but it's also nestled," she recalls saying to herself. "I think I like the nestled feeling."
Mr. Dodd remembers visiting the land and climbing onto the roof of the car to get a sense of the view over the treetops.
"We'll build up," Ms. Dodd told him.
They purchased the 10-acre property north of the neighbouring town of Cobourg, in Hamilton Township.
The entrance leads to a large foyer with a winding staircase and formal living room.
The house today
The Dodds spent a few years building up funds and thinking about the house they would eventually build.
The couple runs Dodd Media Group, which sells advertising space in Canadian and U.S. magazines, including such titles as Architectural Digest and Food & Wine.
Ms. Dodd was immersed in images of beautiful kitchens and interiors every day, and she built a huge file of pages torn from glossy publications. The Dodds' client list also included many of the Canadian suppliers who advertised in those pages.
The couple tried working with an architect, but he couldn't come up with a design that suited them.
The family dining room was where the owners’ children did their homework.
After years of working in the basement, high on Mr. Dodd's wish list was an above-ground office. The architect came back with a plan that, once again, put the office in the basement. Another early rendition had a turret in the living room.
After several tries at improving communication, the Dodds decided to have their own plans drawn up and work directly with the builder.
After about 14 months of construction, the family moved in in March, 1999.
They set the house far back from the road so that it would have complete privacy.
"I want you to discover it when you drive up this beautiful, long driveway," Ms. Dodd says.
She also admired the timelessness of traditional homes.
The dining room has doors opening to a balcony.
"I wanted it to look as if it could be there forever."
Visitors pass through stone gates and arrive at a house obscured from the road by a forest of evergreen and deciduous trees.
The four-bedroom house has 7,000 square feet of above-ground living space.
Inside, guests arrive to a large foyer with a winding staircase, a formal living room and a traditional dining room with doors opening to a balcony.
"It's very comfortable in there. People like to linger in that room," Ms. Dodd says.
The large kitchen, which has been featured in several decorating magazines, has a granite-topped island with a built-in wood chopping block. The six-burner range is stainless steel and the double sink is in front of a bay window facing into the trees.
The kitchen has a granite-topped island, six-burner range and double sink.
"I wanted a view in every room," Ms. Dodd says.
There's a large family room with a beamed cathedral ceiling and a casual eating area.
"The family room dining area is where all the kids did their homework," Ms. Dodd says.
Upstairs, there's a large master suite with an ensuite bathroom and a soaker tub beside the window.
The master bedroom has large windows that peer onto the surrounding lush lot.
There's a second bedroom and bathroom and two additional bedrooms share a bathroom.
Throughout the house, Ms. Dodd used windows manufactured in Manitoba. She visited the plant in bone-chilling cold.
"It's the coldest that I've ever felt in my life. I thought, 'These people know about windows because they live in the cold.'"
Windows used throughout the house were manufactured in Manitoba.
Ms. Dodd says she had the exterior of the house clad in shingles and stone because she loves texture and organic materials.
Ms. Dodd was having trouble finding a stone that appealed to her when Mr. Dodd suggested she visit a supplier in Connecticut. She went on a tour of the grand homes in Greenwich and decided on the warm tones of Rhode Island fieldstone.
Costs were mounting, however, and Ms. Dodd grappled with ways to economize. She considered cutting the budget for the shingles, the windows or the stone.
"It turned out that I just couldn't give up anything."
The business receives payment in U.S. dollars from clients in New York and Miami and, at the time, the value of the greenback soared against the Canadian loonie. That provided a nice boost to the budget just when they needed it most, Ms. Dodd says.
The stone was also used in the home's Rumford-style fireplaces and to line some of the interior walls.
The Rhode Island fieldstone was used for the exterior, as well as inside for the home’s fireplaces and to line some of the interior walls.
"I wasn't intending to bring the stone into the house, but it was so beautiful I wanted to see it," Ms. Dodd says.
A breezeway connects the main house to the two-storey home office.
"The walkway is sort of that transition and mental release," she says.
Mr. Dodd's office, on the upper level, now has the best views in the house. When the leaves have fallen from the trees, he can see Lake Ontario in the distance.
"In the fall and the winter, you can just see for miles," Ms. Dodd says.
She adds that the space could also be turned into a studio or an in-law suite.
The backyard comes complete with a pool, koi pond and wrought-iron fencing.
A few years after moving into the house, the couple had a large in-ground swimming pool built. It's surrounded by a stone terrace, a koi pond and hand-forged wrought iron fencing.
The couple has done lots of entertaining in the house, including parties with up to 350 people. They've hosted a political fundraiser and events for the private Trinity College School, where their three children were educated.
The best feature
One year, Ms. Dodd returned from an Italian getaway that included a stint at a cooking school in Tuscany. The location had a fantastic outdoor pizza oven.
"I came home and said, 'We're doing a pizza oven.'"
She had a large concrete pad poured behind the pool in preparation for the oven. At the time, the worker who poured the concrete was scratching his head, asking her why she needed such an expanse.
Ms. Dodd reconsidered and decided that an outdoor fireplace with room to gather might get more use than the pizza oven.
She changed course and used the concrete pad for a cabana instead. There's a large bar and lots of room for entertaining. The stone floor and Brazilian hardwood were all meant to withstand the elements, but the Dodds decided to have windows built.
"We only ended up closing it up as an afterthought," Ms. Dodd says.
Now, they remove the windows in the summer and reinstall them in the late fall. Mr. Dodd holds parties for watching Grey Cup and Super Bowl games every year.
"I tried to build things that were going to stand the test of time," Ms. Dodd says.
