Like a bird’s abstract aerie, black powder-coated aluminum intricately crisscrosses the upper street-level windows of The Nest Beach House. It’s a decorative tribute to the surrounding environment, high upon the bluffs overlooking Skaha Lake in Penticton.
“[Famed architect] Frank Lloyd Wright’s principles resonate with me,” explains Kim Larson, director of All Elements Design.Manage.Build and owner/builder of The Nest Beach House. “He is an important inspiration because he created modern residential architecture as part of the land—and not just plopping down a house anywhere.”
Looking back at her childhood growing up in Penticton, Kim says, it’s not surprising she chose to build with Lego instead of playing with dolls. By age 10 or 11, she was obsessed with drawing neighbouring homes. Later, she studied architectural technology at college in California, while revelling in the outdoorsy lifestyle (she recently bought a getaway beach condo there).
Returning to her roots in the South Okanagan as a project manager for various residential and commercial projects, Kim established her Kelowna-based company in 2009 with a passionate dedication to streamline the often-arduous task of building luxury homes. She is extremely cognizant of the importance of net-zero sustainability in her own home, which includes solar panels on the rooftop, and in the homes her company builds that have up to 80 per cent energy efficiency. Multiple Tommie, Georgie and Builder awards attest to her ingenuity and environmental practices.
Kim is a person who, when confronted with a problem, makes lemons into lemonade.
“I had just started to build my four-storey beach home in 2019, but then COVID hit, and we required a pause. It has been a lifelong dream of mine to live on the lake, so I just hunkered down with my little bubble, and we’d have our own parties on the dock. Luckily, I had built that first!” she laughs.
“Penticton has become more development-friendly, being more proactive about creating housing. It’s promoting densification while still maintaining its small-town feel, which I just love,” she says.
“I designed a house where you actually go down a level from the street to enter the main living space,” she explains. “It was quite a complicated build, because on the side facing the lake, they had to blast down two levels to lay the foundation.”
A glass floor at the entrance allows light to stream through and, upon entering the house, it offers a peek into the living area below, before you head down the stairs that separate the kitchen from the dining area.
The compact open-concept home is only 23 feet wide on a 30-foot lot, but it appears much larger because Kim, though a “minimalist,” has a few tricks up her sleeve. She lets the light and spectacular views on every floor do the talking through many floor-to-ceiling unframed windows. She chose a monochromatic colour palette, which contributes to a natural room flow on each level. And, she uses mirrors expertly, giving the illusion of larger spaces.
In short, she says, “I hate clutter – I’m a clean freak.”
Kim’s streamlined kitchen has no hardware on any of the white oak cabinetry. Instead, the cabinets open easily with a finger pull. The fridge and dishwasher are hidden behind matte-finished built-in panelling.
“I chose the colour of all the cabinetry because it’s like the sand on the beach,” she says.
Black wire stools at the island and a black striated cabinet panel above the sink riff on the bird’s-nest motif on the front of the home’s exterior. Porcelain tiles throughout the house resemble concrete flooring, and half-inch black reveals give a floating look to the island’s countertop.
“I don’t like baseboards,” Kim admits, “so there are no baseboards throughout the house and we did black shadow lines instead. It’s a very clean, modern, contemporary look.”
A massive deck for entertaining leads out from glass doors in the kitchen and runs the entire width of the house overlooking Skaha Lake.
Jacqueline (AKA Jac) comes bounding into the living room with a shoe in her mouth. The eight-month-old chocolate Lab stops short of the six-foot-wide linear burner fireplace that uses porcelain rocks.
“It has zero clearance, which means you can hang anything above it right down to the glass,” Kim explains. “On the walls I brought in Dekton panels made from recycled porcelain from Spain. I also used that on the kitchen island’s countertop.”
Off the kitchen is a laundry room with an energy-efficient heat pump dryer. For the nearby powder room, Kim gave carte blanche to one of her company’s craftsmen, Sean Dolan, who built a dark emerald green cabinet topped with a blonde hickory wood that contains raised-profile double sinks. The bird’s nest theme of criss-crossed lines continues through the wood with the addition of an epoxy configuration that resembles a meandering river. A barn door, a clever design element used several times throughout the home, pulls across for privacy.
Upstairs, we catch a glimpse of Kim’s love of the outdoors. Doubling as art hung on the wall in the off season is her Pau Hana Oahu stand-up paddleboard, designed in California.
“I just love paddleboarding in the summertime on the lake for a few hours. It’s so calming,” she says. She also enjoys taking friends aboard her Mastercraft X46 surf boat and cruising Skaha Lake.
Kim’s office on this level is where she still sketches by hand, and then gives the designs to her team to put on CAD software. A sliding barn door can easily be closed for meetings with clients.
A guest bedroom on the very top floor faces the street, but it’s the en suite that captures your attention: a clear glass and steel barn door slides across the shower, surrounded by black-veined marble and grey geometric floor tiles.
“That door is really different and one of my favourite things in my home that I designed,” says Kim.
A converted narrow hallway segues into a relaxing space with a sofa and TV, and leads to the master bedroom and en suite.
“Viewed from the lake, the room juts out 10 feet further than the downstairs portion of the house,” Kim enthuses. It’s a cantilevered nod to an iconic Frank Lloyd Wright element of creating living spaces in what appears to be midair.
“Looking through the floor-to-ceiling-windows when I lie in bed in the morning makes me feel like I’m hovering over the lake. And at night, through the skylight, the stars are amazing!”
This feature first appeared in the January 2023 edition of Boulevard Okanagan.
