Gentlemen, start your engines.
And ladies, too, if you would like to make tracks next weekend to visit the newly renovated home of a “raging bull” on Beach Drive.
Mary and Bob Dales purchased their water-view house in the Uplands, near Cattle Point, in early 2013 and moved in a few months ago after remodelling it from top to bottom. The eye-popping results can be seen on the Young Life Home Tour, taking place April 30 and May 1.
One of the biggest draws is what Mary calls “the garage Mahal” and its contents, which include a scissor-door Lamborghini Aventador with factory upgrade.
This car has 760 horsepower and a 12-cylinder engine, can hit top speeds of 370 km/h, accelerates from zero to 60 in “well under” three seconds and is worth half a million dollars.
Parked beside it are a gleaming Ferrari 458 Spider with removable hardtop, and two collectible Corvettes: a 2006 high-performance 505 horsepowered racer, and a 2015 Corvette Z07 racer.
Bob won’t say which is his favourite, but the Lamborghini’s emblem of a raging bull seems to tell it all. He acknowledges it’s the only car that has actually terrified him once, thanks to its speed and power.
Pound for pound, he says, it delivers “the best growl and scream” of any car he has owned.
At first glance, the garage looks like an intensive-care unit with four cars on life support. But the Calgary oilman explains the cords hanging like IVs over the cars are trickle chargers, necessary because the vehicles are constantly drawing juice. “These cars have more computer capability on board than your average house and if you kill a battery, it’s not as simple as getting some jumper cables.”
Bob is full of car stories, but one of his greatest thrills was joining a gathering of about 400 Lamborghini owners in Nice for the 50th anniversary of that car maker. “People came from all over the planet and I shipped my car over for the event.”
Owners took part in a Grande Giro Lamborghini Anniversario rally through southern France, where he said the police were a pain about speeding, but when they headed into Italy, it was a whole different story: “like a national holiday.”
Streets were jammed with screaming Italians who encouraged drivers to go faster and faster. They drove into Rome at “triple the speed limit” with a police escort and cruised around the sights, through Vatican City and past the Colosseum.
Interestingly, having swanky cars in this Victoria garage is nothing new, said Bob.
The original home, built in the 1950s, didn’t have one, but in the late 1980s, a large garage was added by then-owner Murray Gammon, who built the Hotel Grand Pacific and opened the Classic Car Museum in 1971. His fleet of 40 vehicles included ones used by royals and owned by movie stars such as Clark Gable and Errol Flynn.
The next owner converted that space into a professional woodworking shop, and in the mid-2000s, more changes took place when the CEO of an oil and gas company, Cequence Energy, bought the house.
The current owners spent six months planning their extensive renovation, which went far beyond the garage. Many of the rooms were gutted and today, the interiors have plenty to intrigue visitors, including many pieces by Northwest Coast artist Jason Hunt (see sidebar).
Project manager Darren Wark of DBW Contracting said time was the biggest challenge. “We worked here for two years and during that time, we averaged 10 to 15 guys on the job every day. It was a huge amount of work.”
The deck alone took six workers five months to finish, said Wark, who was previously maintenance manager at Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe Hotel but got into building and high-end renos in 2006.
The enormous deck, located above the garage, is one of the home’s most impressive features, with its glass guardrail and fire pit. The previous deck’s membrane, guardrails and rotted flooring were removed and replaced with a new membrane and an intricate, geometrically patterned wooden floor.
“This is the kind of structure that can be used year-round,” said Bob of the outdoor covered kitchen with gas barbecue, dual oven gas range, wine fridge, disappearing large-screen TV, custom lighting, heater and music system.
Changes inside the house were no less major. The front entry was pushed out one metre and etched-glass windows were installed on either side and above the door, commissioned from Charles Gabriel Glassworks.
A subtly curved stairway — of rock, wood and glass-bowed handrails — was custom-made by Dave Huyck, who also did all the extensive new woodwork inside the home. The staircase is lit from beneath by pressure-sensitive lights that turn on when the treads are about to be stepped on.
Mary designed the new kitchen, which was moved forward into the living space, totally restyled, and given a large butler’s pantry, which can be closed off behind another etched-glass door. Floor-to-ceiling cabinets in this room slide out to reveal massive amounts of storage, and behind one door is a rolling cart fitted with all her large appliances.
“The old configuration was very odd, and I wanted to have more interaction with family and friends during meal preparation,” she said, adding cooking is her passion now that she is retired from her job in finance. Glancing at her new custom cabinets, lighting and island topped with one vast, solid piece of granite, she joked: “I am a simple woman, now living an unsimple life.”
She explained the previous countertop was pink and orange, “like tiger ice cream,” and she went for a starker, sleeker look.
The couple turned a lower-floor bedroom into a gymnasium, added a spacious office and gutted the master suite. A two-person jetted tub and large steam shower with custom lighting, music and aromatherapy capability is now the centerpiece of the ensuite, along with Italian wall and floor tile with beautiful fossils in it.
The bones of the 6,000-square-foot home (not counting the 2,000-square-foot garage) were good, but the Dales didn’t care for the finishing, so they worked closely with interior designer Brian Shuckburgh and late, great lighting expert Lowell Barnhart. The two previously Hawaii-based experts came here to retire, but got involved with this project, “and loved every minute of it,” said Shuckburgh, who will be on site for the tour.
He chuckled about how the project evolved. “It started when Mary called and wanted some help picking out a chandelier for the entry. It was so cramped, we thought about creating more space, adding some architectural lighting, new stairs, some wall space for art … it grew from there.”
Needless to say, the garage is a highlight, with its refitted custom cabinets, multi-stage lighting system, epoxy floor, giant-screen TV and mural.
Wark brought in a huge boulder, too, that he found on the site and placed in front of the mural. “You can’t have a man cave without a rock,” he explained.
The owners credit the expertise and creativity of an army of workers, including Benito and Pablo Masonry, North Glass and Aluminum, Montague Plumbing and Gas, Gradient Plumbing & Gas, Abbott Electric, Illuminations, Rada Resurfacing, Clearwater Wood Industries, Matrix Marble & Stone, Heatwave and CWM Landscaping.
“Opening our house to the public and putting it on the Young Life tour is our way to thank all the people who have been instrumental in creating all this,” said Bob.
SIDEBAR or extended cutline if needed…
Artist Jason Hunt said meeting the Dales was serendipitous.
“We met at a party and they mentioned they had bought a paddle some years before. They described it and it sounded like one of mine, so I went to see it the next day.”
It was, indeed, his, and since then, the Dales have collected many more of his pieces, all made from 600-year-old Vancouver Island red cedar.
Hunt, who lives just outside Port Hardy, is descended from a celebrated line of carvers, including his great-grandfather, chief Mungo Martin.
“We are one of the few families on the coast with an unbroken chain of carvers, but my father is my inspiration.
“He is very traditional, whereas I am more contemporary … I’ve taken what he’s done and spun it in my own style.”
