Celebrity Style
April 3, 2017
Tour Kim Cattrall’s Very Canadian Vancouver Island Home
“There’s a magical majesty to it,” Kim Cattrall says of the Pacific Northwest landscape, framed as it is with mountains, a wind-tousled sea, and storybook thickets of Douglas firs and red cedars. It’s part of what enchants her about Vancouver Island and prompted her to buy a house here. Kim was born in Liverpool, but grew up on Vancouver Island about 40 minutes from this house. Buying the property is like coming full circle. “I never thought in my wildest dreams about coming back to the home I grew up in — when you’re young, you’re so busy trying to make your ripple. But when I sat here, I thought, ‘This feels right,’” she says.
The Canadian actress still has an apartment in Manhattan, and a beach house in the Hamptons, but this house draws her back to her private life most acutely — buying the house finally felt like putting down roots. When she’s not jet-setting or filming Sensitive Skin, a dark comedy series (on Netflix, HBO Canada and iTunes), this Vancouver home is where she likes to spend weeks at a time hiking, enjoying nature and spending time with family and friends.
Click through to tour the serene space.
Kim pays homage to film director Federico Fellini on the beach near her Vancouver Island home.
Kim’s living room is cozy and relaxed with pops of red. She took the photographs above the sofa on a recent trip to Alert Bay. Overlooking it all is Cornelius, the moose head Kim rescued from The Door Store in Toronto. “I saw that the fur on his nose was getting thinner because people kept touching it. And I thought, ‘This noble head needs a home!’ Whenever I see him, he makes me smile.”
In the dining area, understated furniture in simple shapes and natural wood suits the rustic setting.
In what Kim calls the Eagle’s Nest, a neutral palette lets the view shine. Kim has her morning cup of tea here, in the company of sea lions. “They sound like 600 barking dogs,” she says.
Kim found much of the First Nations artwork at a shop on a reservation in the Comox Valley. The button blanket by Reynold Collins is one of the pieces that brings a vibrance and energy, and demonstrate Kim’s desire to reflect the area. “I wanted to bring in as many Canadian designers and artists — whether it was the gentleman in Victoria who made the doors, or the First Nations artists, or local accents,” she says of her design philosophy.
Fur throws, rustic blankets and traditional handwoven baskets bring texture and warmth to the bedroom. Vintage kilim pillows add color, while an antique trunk lends storage at the foot of the bed.
The guest house also has a waterfront view and offers visitors their own private space.
The wildness of the landscape is what most appealed to Kim about the property. She calls this tangle of branches The Dragon because it looks like it has a head and wings.
Made of canvas-wrapped poles, the tepee sleeps four and serves as both a cozy lounging space and a stand-alone sculptural piece; in the winter, Kim removes the canvas and leaves the bouquet of poles standing.
Janis Nicolay
House & Home November 2016