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by Raymond Bernatchez Montréal – Home is one place where we have to be able to give free rein to our passions, considers engineer André Dupras. “If my companion and I had been music lovers we wouldn’t have hesitated to build our home around a concert hall. But Marie-Josée Lévesque is a circus artist and our children who are very lively, are constantly moving about. I therefore designed my house around a gymnasium.” In her wildest dreams, trapeze artist Marie-Josée Lévesque could never have imagined herself hanging upside down, her arms along her body, suspended between the ceiling and the floor, smack in the middle of her own home. And yet… |
Trained at the national circus school, trapeze artist with the Cirque du Soleil then with the Cirque Eloize, the young woman was constantly on the move when mechanical engineer André Dupras, a specialist in building services, stepped into her life, a few years ago. They now have four children. The oldest was six when the adventure of their extraordinary home began in 1999. To get closer to her loved ones, Marie-Josée Lévesque had started a business, Cirque Fantastic Concept, dedicated to entertainment at major private functions. All that remained was to determine how she could pursue her daily training routines in her home.
André Dupras decided to do something about this “small” problem. He started by purchasing a 200,000-sq. ft. piece of swampland that no one wanted in the Laurentians. By the time he was done with it, the water had turned to gold. By digging down 9 feet, and then channelling this water into 12,000 feet of flexible pipes, he built a geothermal field the size of a football field. This supply of relatively inexpensive energy made it possible to build his huge cross-shaped house that otherwise would have been frightfully expensive to live in.
The core area of the home houses a gym with a 31-foot ceiling. The room itself is an unbelievable 61 x 26 feet. Room enough for a huge three-story house. Flying trapezes are solidly fixed to the steel girders holding up the industrial metal roof of the type that can be seen in certain grocery stores. White lines on the polished cement floor delineate an Olympic-size badminton court. Ease of execution and ease of maintenance throughout.
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A huge glass wall looks onto the lake. On either side, André Dupras built the two wings of the building. The family lives in the 60-ft. long south wing. On the first floor, a mezzanine looks out to the gymnasium whereas on the ground floor, an unpartitioned living room leads directly to the “playground”. The 40-foot long north wing is reserved for houseguests who can live in it completely independently. It doesn’t have a mezzanine, but on the ground floor a huge module contains a stunning kitchen-bar (looking onto the gym, of course) with no hanging cupboards. All storage units as well as the stainless steel caddies are at waist height. |
Paintings by Corno are incorporated to the walls on the whole perimeter of the Gym. One of them, a very large one, is especially powerful, on a bright sunny-yellow wall. The shouts of young children gallivanting about on exercise mats or suspended on a trapeze, fill the air. They are also allowed to skate about freely in all of the hallways on the ground floor, which is something their friends really enjoy when they come to visit.
Seen from the outside, the house looks almost unassuming, and its cedar wall coverings blend in quite harmoniously with the surrounding nature.
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Light fuses in from everywhere and there is no need for artificial light during the day. Hot water in the geothermal installation meanders in a network of pipes inside the cement pads on the ground and the first floors. After heating the pads themselves, the heat radiates into the surrounding air. Eye-shaped rotating adjustable back up air cannons, placed at the foot of the glass panels, can blow hot or cool air to heights of over 40 feet; quietly, without the slightest thermal wave. This awesome house is also a model of technological acrobatics. Covered with sensors and filled with industrial and home automation equipment, it is linked up to a central computer that manages the five heat-pumps, 32 heating valves, 52 networks totalling 12,000 feet of pipes and 30 transmitters (and not thermostats). With the simple click of a mouse, whether on the road or at the office, the owner can modify the air and water temperatures, indoor and outdoor lighting, the watering of the lawn or the hyper sophisticated safety devices transmitting an endless flow of remote images of the home. |
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The construction costs of this house with 126-foot frontage on the lake? “Comparable to the price of a standard house, given that it is finished very simply and without frills,” says André Dupras. “No moulding or hardwood floors. The doors and staircases are steel, just like in a factory. Don’t look for the ‘cigar room’ there isn’t one. What you will find in our house though, are laughing children and adults who play like children.” |
