Mary Kerr is an acclaimed production designer for theatre, dance, opera, feature film, television and special exhibitions.
She has created visual alchemy for the Paris Opera Ballet, New Zealand Opera, Shaw and Stratford festivals and was not only production designer for the 1994 Commonwealth Games’ opening and closing ceremonies, but also designed the Canadian Pavilion and First Theatre for Expo ’86.
So what does an expert in sceneographic splendour do when it comes to setting the scene at home?
Not surprisingly, she and husband John Armitage, a New Zealand-trained architect, have created a juicy fusion of fun and function that reflects their creativity and strong backgrounds in the arts.
Since 1991, Armitage has worked with Garyali Architect Inc, specializing in green architecture, public and institutional projects (such as a new performance hall for Glenlyon Norfolk, the Central Middle School renovation and improvements to the Cowichan campus of Vancouver Island University) and residential work.
This dovetails beautifully with Kerr’s career on the international stage, where she created unique experiments in scale, materials and colour. Small wonder their century-old home is like a living sketchbook, a place of visual storytelling.
“We are constantly exploring — so our home is constantly evolving,” said Kerr.
How it looks depends on what they are exploring at any given time, whether influences from theatre, architecture, playing with new ideas or expanding upon forgotten ones.
“It’s one of the reasons John and I connect. A big part of our life together is talking about design. It’s 90 per cent of our work.
“Whatever we’re doing on the inside of our lives is reflected on the outside, in our house.” Because Kerr is currently archiving her 350-show career, their home is ablaze with vivid images of sets, costumes and designs.
Kerr, who is a professor in the theatre department at the University of Victoria, has been nominated for a whopping 14 Dora Mavor Moore Awards — so the seven she won are part of the décor, too. (Her bio, pinned behind a kitchen door for quick reference, stretches two metres long in type so tiny you need a magnifying glass to read it.)
“Home is a form of architectural theatre, kinetic sculpture that reacts to life situations through its settings, the characters that inhabit it, the dramatic needs, the colours in our life,” she said.
Armitage noted one of the essences of theatre is that everything changes with a new production. Nothing is permanent. “It’s the same with our house and garden.”
When they first moved here from Toronto, they rented a Beach Drive house designed by renowned architect John Di Castri. One day, they drove by their current Oak Bay house and commented to each other that such a house would be perfect.
“We never thought we could afford something like this, but suddenly it was on the market and we managed to make it work,” said Armitage.
They needed a home large enough for Kerr’s parents too, both in their 80s then, and this house proved ideal since after climbing the front stairs, it’s all on one level.
Sadly her mother died the day they took possession, but her father lived there 11 years and, when it became difficult for him to manage stairs, Armitage designed a wide deck stretching across the back of the house.
The architect-designed home, built in 1912, is brimming with arts-and-crafts details.
“During this period, Victoria was in the midst of a phenomenal building boom with 1,000 houses a year being built, all with hand labour and armies of apprentices,” said Armitage. “It was amazing. A boom like that today would have people up in arms.”
The arts-and-crafts movement was all about a house for everyone, “and it was very democratic,” he said, so while the front rooms are imposing, the rooms at the back are more relaxed.
“There was no hierarchy, no scullery at the back. It was a time for breaking down the formality of Victorian style … and the kitchen was not an afterthought for servants only.”
This one is large, welcoming and one of the nicest places in the house, partly thanks to large, top-hinged windows that swing open like giant bird’s wings, allowing the scent of roses and jasmine to waft in — along with a few climbing tendrils.
The home has two living rooms, one to the left and one to the right of the front door, “which meant it would have been a home of some stature,” said Armitage, who added the layout proved ideal for their extended family.
The living room at right was finished with dramatic moulding while the other had less, so Armitage added new mouldings round the top of the room. In the kitchen, he added a customized valance as a unifying device, and handy spot for targeted downlights.
This valance is higher than in the front room, “because people are mostly standing here, rather than seated.”
“The arts-and-crafts movement played with very simple pieces of moulding, and we did the same,” he said, noting the long seat he designed for the flattened bay window echoes elements from the chunky plate rail.
The 250-square-foot dining room was a large, gloomy cave before they painted the dark-stained, wood walls in restoration white, leaving only the dark sideboard “as a relic.”
“The underlying horizontal theme in the dining room has a very calming, reassuring effect,” but he felt the room needed a vertical axis too, so he played with the idea of a sculptural ceiling skylight, to give it a sense of uplift.
The home is a shade under 2,000 square feet and sometimes the owners use the breakfast nook as a spare bedroom.
“We started out with a typical table and chairs and two couches, but replaced them with upholstered, integrated benches and a table that folds up,” he said. The benches offer full storage underneath and give the room a breezy beach house air.
All the wiring and plumbing was replaced and the main bathroom was gutted. It’s now fondly called the “Aegean room,” thanks to intense turquoise tiles that remind them of their meeting in Greece.
Colour is something they are both focusing on more these days.
For a long time, Kerr’s sets featured an elegant mélange of white and natural wood — as did their home, “but it feels as if the world needs the joy of colour now. I’m using more colour in my work and John explored this too in the exteriors of his recent Central Middle School Renovation.”
Both of them enjoy the way light interacts with saturated, primary colours.
“I got very tired of diluted colours and really don’t care for pastels,” Kerr said. “I did the Marriage of Figaro in all that delicate, Rococo stuff because it suited the music, which sounds like silk and velvet, but not at home.”
Armitage pointed out she hails from Winnipeg and he from New Zealand, so they are used to bright light and big skies. But just because they revel in natural light doesn’t mean they have enormous windows.
He believes most residential buildings are over-glazed.
“People have run amok with glass and you lose the domestic quality of a dwelling when you put in too much.
“What we like most about this house is the lulling, sheltering feeling — which is the primary thing about any home in its most profound form.”