All Eyes Outdoors: A Dundarave mansion redefines luxury through nature and privacy

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What does luxury mean to the modern mansion dweller? Artiman Design & Build bet on green for a recent custom home in Dundarave.

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The entire six-bedroom, six-bathroom luxury home is oriented outward – with towering panes of glass that peer into a wraparound garden from nearly every room. For warmer months, a window wall rolls open to merge the home’s living room with its patio and pool area.

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Beyond that, the concept was “using natural materials, and natural-sparked design, which feels like outside, to blur life between the indoors and outdoors,” says Arash Mostashari, Artiman’s engineering manager.

Off the home’s dining room, cedar panelling adds organic warmth to a covered outdoor lounge, with its own chef-inspired outdoor kitchen – and overhead heaters to keep the space comfortable year-round.

To contend with a 15-foot drop in elevation, the design team set the home at the back of the lot, creating a series of architectural concrete walls. These level the site, but also cloak the yard in privacy, in tandem with tightly planted mature shrubs. Artificial grass blends in for easy upkeep, while a rectangular hot tub-pool combo has a waterfall feature, which generates white noise – or “white music” as Mostashari poetically calls it – to dampen outside sound.

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Then there’s the Zen garden: at the back of the home, a nook in the architecture made a perfect little spot for this feature, with a 12-year-old topiary tree craned into place. “From everywhere inside the house, you can see the Zen garden, so it’s always giving a peaceful feeling to the occupants,” says Mostashari.

The home, currently for sale, has received a slew of award nominations – seven from the Homebuilder’s Association of Vancouver – including for best outdoor-living space – as well as several from the national and provincial Canadian Homebuilders’ Associations.

Design, Construction and Landscaping: Artiman Design & Build

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