Building A House On An Island: Challenges, Best Practices, and Examples

Design Your Dream Home Guide:

In this episode of Build The Unbuildable, James Pitropov, Principal at Lakeside Architecture Inc, shares his experience building on some of the most challenging sites in Ontario's cottage country; islands. How do you transport equipment and materials? What is the environmental impact? What should be factored into the design of such a cottage? We answer all these questions and more.

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction
00:53 Challenges of Building on an Island
01:20 Logistics and Design Considerations
07:21 Environmental Impact and Considerations
12:49 Powering a Lakeside Cottage
17:55 Case Study: Bass Island Cottage
25:04 Designing Your Dream Home
30:26 Conclusion and Contact Information

Connect with James on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-pitropov-783029156/
Learn more about Lakeside Architecture Inc: https://lakesidearchitecture.ca/

Learn more at https://lakesidearchitecture.ca/

Transcript

James Pitropov 0:00

exotically enough, their intent was to access the island at times to bring guests in by helicopter. Your dream. And my dream and someone else's dream might be a little bit different. It can be from a different scale. But the idea is that everyone has an inner dream that we try to, to develop

0:17

You are listening to Build the Unbuildable, a podcast about designing dream cottages on some of the most challenging sites in Ontario's cottage country. On each episode, you'll hear behind the scenes stories, practical advice and unexpected lessons from building high-end homes in impossible places.

John Tyreman 0:35

Hello and welcome. You are listening to Build the Unbuildable, a podcast about building high-end homes and impossible places. My name is John Tieman and I am here with the principle of Lakeside Architecture. Mr. James Pitropov James, how are you doing?

James Pitropov 0:49

I am doing pretty well today, John, how about yourself?

John Tyreman 0:52

I am doing excellent. on today's podcast episode, we are going to be talking about the challenges of building on an island. Is it even possible? How is it possible? What do you need to consider? These are all questions that we're going to explore on today's podcast. So James, are you ready to dive in?

James Pitropov 1:10

I am ready for the deep dive John.

John Tyreman 1:12

Diving deep. Love it. All right. So let's start with the big question and then we can kind of drill down from there. So, um, if I was interested in building a cottage on a lake island, what are some of the main considerations to think about?

James Pitropov 1:31

Well, John, I think that a decision to build on an island, it is a big decision. Um, great if you have the property. Um, there are some logistical challenges, uh, with it. So, one of the first, uh, considerations is the access and delivery of materials to an island. Not only is that a construction consideration, but in terms of of design, it, it helps guide whether we are looking at alternative ways to put construction together. Are we building with panels? Are we flying material in a lot, in a lot of cases? We'll build, um, in the shoulder seasons, we'll, uh, get materials out on an island. A lot of lakes will have, uh, barge services so we can build, um, during the summer, in the winter, we can get material across the ice on the island as well. Some other considerations though, are focusing on a, on a construction season and. Designs that are appropriate and, and fit, um, fit your family. There's weather delays that can come up. There's, uh, lake conditions. Also, in terms of being on an island, sometimes you're, you may be in a sensitive uh, site location environmentally. So sometimes there's considerations of, of, uh, environmental studies, um, uh, power sources that are make sense for your site. In some cases, there's hydro lines beneath the water that there's power already crossing a lake. Uh, in, in other, uh, cases, the, the water and the power and the septic solutions are more complex. Uh, and there are some examples of, of some alternative ways to get power and um, keep your systems working on an island that some viewers may not be familiar with yet.

John Tyreman 3:27

Interesting. So it sounds like some of the big main considerations are access and delivery of materials to that location. So that's kind of like a big one. Um, and then I'm, I'm curious, like you mentioned building in the wintertime. And building on the lake. Are you actually driving construction vehicles onto the ice?

James Pitropov 3:49

yeah, that that is the case. It. Um, some of the basic, uh, uh, construction equipment that is required would be excavators, mini excavators, skid steers, um, whole rams, which are rock breakers. And having the, the equipment ready to go on site is, is pretty important. So most cases we'll barge the material over. Um, we can do it in the winter as well, but it all comes down to timing I found that the summer and the winter, the time to do it, the fall and the spring have their own challenges that make it very hazardous, trying to get onto an island.

John Tyreman 4:26

I can imagine. Yeah. All that melting ice, right.

James Pitropov 4:29

Well, in the spring, John, there's, the thin ice, there's cracking ice, getting the heavy equipment to the boat launch, uh, or shore access. A lot of the roads aren't in full service until later in the spring. There are half load seasons, uh, where you're discouraged by the municipality from getting heavy equipment even to your, to your launch. So there's some of the challenges. And then in the, in the fall, likewise, that early ice, the slushy, uh, or thin ice, is pretty hazardous, especially when some of the lakes have currents through them. So it just doesn't make sense. But we know that in the summer things are more reliable. And in the winter, working off the ices can be a breeze.

John Tyreman 5:14

that's really

James Pitropov 5:15

steady breeze. More of a gale at times.

John Tyreman 5:19

that's really interesting. So I, I have, I have to imagine that the ability to. Start a construction project or continue working in the wintertime has an impact on your construction timeline, so you don't always have to just start in the summertime. I think that might be a misconception out there, right?

James Pitropov 5:35

Yeah, that's a good point. John, John, as you know, um. I'm a registered architect. I have two companies. One is Lakeside Architecture and the other one is the construction management side, which is Lakeside Construction Management. By developing, uh, experience and expertise in both over the years, um, I know that a well planned project, might take about four to six months to plan. It can go up to 10 or 11 months for documentation. There's always changes, there's approvals, so very quickly you can. Commit a year into really strong planning. Then in terms of, of construction 10 months, 12 months, 14 months, 16 months, houses are getting more complex, cottages are getting more complex, and the time span from the beginning of the project to occupancy, it could be up to two years for a very unique special property. So the timing, um, we are. Uh, just outta necessity. We need to make use of all seasons. A lot of homeowners will come to me in the fall looking to develop plans over the, over the winter, but by the time you break ground, you might be into the fall, so chances are you could be working out in the elements right into the, the following winter.

John Tyreman 6:53

And so I guess that's why it's really important to be adaptable and to have to understand how to handle each of those seasons when construction begins.

James Pitropov 7:01

Yeah, that's right. And to, to make use and, and benefit from the, time between the seasons as well to do design and specifying of materials and sourcing all the best materials. We need to be resourceful with the calendar over a time span of, of 12 to probably 12 to 20 months in most cases. For a unique custom place.

John Tyreman 7:20

Okay. So let's, let's talk a little bit more about the, um, environmental impact and considerations when building on an island. I guess what are some of the, the common. Um, challenges of environmental, challenges of building on an island.

James Pitropov 7:36

Well, there are a couple Now a lot of the, uh, projects that I, design and then, uh, uh, build. Are on, are, um, located on lakes that may have one or two of two conditions. So a lot of the lakes that are, they're, they're mostly in Canadian shield, cottage country. A lot of them have deep water nearby, which means lake trout, any sort of siltation. Particularly in the summer when the warm rains come down and, and, uh, the, the sediment ends up in the lake has a very deleterious effect on lake trout and their spawning. So that is one of the, one of the, uh, things that we have to, um, safeguard against is siltation of the water for the lake crop. Now, on the other hand, they are cold water fish, and they need their cold oxygenated water to remain pure. On the other hand, uh, a lot of, island and lakefront properties might have wetlands adjacent to them, and that, of course is where the, the bass spawn, bass and other fish are spawning. There's amphibians in there, there's water snakes. There's a whole ecosystem in these back wetlands that people might not be aware of, and the issue there is not disrupting the bottom. During the summer construction season, if you're barging through the wetlands, chances are you're running over the nests of frogs and, fish and, and, and the snakes and all that. So tho those are there. Those are two of the considerations. The third consideration that people might not know about is in these rich. Lake environments. A lot of times there are, birds that are using the island habitat either for nesting or passing through migration. Uh, there's bats as well to consider. So there's a whole range of environmental considerations. And what I do, John, on every project is I'll work with, uh, environmental consultants and then we'll develop, uh, not only, uh, environmental. Impact statement, but we'll do studies that will identify the sensitive areas, um, for migration for nesting, particularly sort of an inventory of wildlife and protection to, wildlife, and fish that need protection. And then we'll develop a plant to mitigate those concerns. And it's gone to some extent. In some extent. When we felt that we were somewhat diminishing, um, garter snake habitat, we actually built a hi ber macular. That's my big word for today. The hi ber macular for snakes, which offset any potential loss of, of habitat, and the, the municipality love those type of of measures when they're issuing site plan approvals.

John Tyreman 10:20

Very, very interesting. Can you give any other examples of maybe, maybe more so on the construction management side, understanding those kind of like those species and their habitats and the importance of that to the ecosystem. Can you give an example of how you've, you might adapt your construction process? To be sensitive to those environments.

James Pitropov 10:44

Well, John, that is a great, great question. So when we're building in a new environment and, and we really are in a, um, a, a new, unconstrained, um, setting when we're out on the islands and, uh, a lot of times some of the islands properties are, they're a little bit wider too. So we have more opportunities on how we lay out our, our buildings and our construction than we would. For example, in, in the city. So one of the questions that I'll ask clients is, the, the question of footprint and the question of foundations and footings. If you're building a, uh, a, a cottage with a big footprint, do you really need the same type of foundations and basements that you would have in the city? It's problematic because it takes up a big footprint on the site. It can require. Site excavation, which is very disruptive to the micro ecology of the site. On some of the sites, there are skins which are rare, uh, Ontario's only lizard species and is very rare, and they're common in the southern part of the Canadian Shield. It just doesn't make sense to excavate and blast and build giant foundations. So I asked clients whether they would consider, building A footprint that is broken down into parts, almost like pavilions a great way to have a very flexible layout on a site. And why can't we put a structure on peers, gets it, gets it off the ground. Animal migration, I would call them micro migrations. It's where the snapping turtles passed to go, to lay their eggs and the snakes and birds and so on. Let's build in a way that's less, destructive to the site, and it actually ends up in better design because then you get lighter structures that are more flexible, more opportunities to adapt to views and so on. It's good for the wildlife, it, and it's, it's good for um, for clients as well.

John Tyreman 12:44

Awesome. Those are some, those are some great examples. Thank you for sharing.

James Pitropov 12:47

Well, thank you.

John Tyreman 12:48

let's talk about power. So are, are you laying out like solar power? You talked about underground cables that bring power. What are some common, challenges and then solutions for powering a lakeside cottage on an island?

James Pitropov 13:02

Well, there's, there's a couple of there, there's a couple of scenarios that that pop up. So one scenario is when you're on, on one of the big lakes. And that, that are established. And a lot of them will have the underwire copper cable from, uh, uh, ages, uh, passed, already accessing onto, onto an island. For heating systems, um, in a lot of the cases. We'll use traditional systems, which are basic. The basic workhorse of cottage country, of course, has always been propane, forced air. However, these days, um, almost exclusively now, a lot, most of the designs are going with, with geothermal systems. In some cases, we're putting, uh, loops into the, into the lake. And the way these systems work, John, is there will be, uh, boilers and that are, that these loops are, are running to, and, the way the boiler works is a boiler will condense the fluids in the pipes. When you condense the fluids from even fairly cool water, the cool water in the lake, even in the winter, it's a minimum of, of four Celsius. So there's always a little bit of latent heat in there, John. If you condense it in a boiler, when you compress that water, it actually releases a lot of heat. So that's the way these systems work. We'll run hydronic tubes where, which are basically plastic tubes inside a port concrete floor. Sometimes there's quarry stone on top. Sometimes it's polished concrete. Very interesting. Beautiful ways to do floors, but fundamentally they're working off of boilers and condensing. Condensing the heat and, and distributing it. So that is one way of doing it. In most cases there's bedrock, so we're not really digging down. However, if the bedrock's a little bit deeper, you don't need to run the tubes in the water. You can run them in trenches above the bedrock as long as there's a few feet of cover over them. And then if there are pits in the bedrock or you're in a more southern area, we can drill down, uh, in wells, uh, as well. Okay. So those are the basic systems that, that we're working with. We haven't really been doing a lot of like completely off grid systems. Some of those systems, like wind power and solar power. I found that they're great as supplemental power systems. They're not super practical and viewers may correct me if they've had, better experiences with them. But for example, solar power, a lot of the time in the winter. It's cloudy half the time. There isn't a lot of sun getting on the panels and there is just so much snow here in Ontario, no matter how you, uh, arrange these things. they're gonna be covered with snow a lot of the time, which is prob problematic. So that's, that's one of the way of doing things. Wind power might be interesting in some locations if you're on the Great Lakes, if you're out on Lake Huron, Georgian Bay. Press steel, you're on the, the facing the open west water, you could probably do all right, but I would consider it supplemental power. Now, one of the interesting projects that, that, uh, I'm working on right now is we are actually on a river system, which has a good, steady flow of water. And we are talking with consultants about the use of, of micro hydro to now to supplement the, uh, existing power system. So there are some opportunities to, to try some alternative systems. Usually it's a combination. John,

John Tyreman 16:38

It's so fascinating, so fascinating. There's still a lot of different options for powering a Lakeside cottage. There is, you know, I think that that might be one kind of misconception or something that folks might not know, is there are a, you know, a lot of different. Options available and then there is, there are ways to supplement that power, so. Very cool.

James Pitropov 16:59

Yeah, and John, it, it depends. Um, different clients will use their cottage for. Longer or shorter periods over the course of the, the the, the seasons. So if a cottage is going to be a home and it's going to be used 52 weekends of the year, it may have one set of requirements. If a cottage is a three season cottage, well the options open up and it's still a long cottaging season. And it it allows us to entertain a wider range of, of, of energy solutions.

John Tyreman 17:31

Well, James, um, I think so those were some great questions. Thank you so much for answering that. You know, what should folks know before building a cottage on an island specifically, we talked about access and delivery. We talked about at the. Impact on construction timelines. We talked about environmental impact, talked about utilities and systems. So let's shift to the next segment of our episode today. the Bass Island Cottage.

James Pitropov 17:58

Ah, yes.

John Tyreman 17:59

so what I'll do, James, is I'm gonna share my screen here and you've got, um, a bunch of beautiful pictures on your website. Um, folks that are watching this, go to lakeside architecture.ca. And then check out the Be Inspired section of the website and you'll see all sorts of different projects from Lakeside architecture, beautiful photographs. Um, and I think I think there may be some videos too that people can check out.

James Pitropov 18:27

There are. I realized pretty early in my career that there are challenges and opportunities that are really unique and, and can be very, um, rewarding on, on waterfront properties. Um, and this is a good example here of building in a difficult to access location. Various views were possible. Various construction methods. Um, so I'll, I'll lay it out for you. Um, bass Island is located on Lake Muskoka. It's not that far from Walker's Point. A lot of people, when they're boating on the lake, they'll, they'll be passing by it. I'll tell you right away, this is one of these projects that you either love or you hate. And, um, it's received a lot of, surprisingly, it's received a lot of press. It's been on um. In uh, the uh, Toronto uh, design magazines. It's been in west of the city, Toronto Life. It was on the National Post. It gets the attention of a lot of people. And what I'd like to do is like, I'd like to present the ideas that come from it that maybe transferrable to other projects, whether or not a person would follow the exact cues on this type of design. Um, it might be more productive if. We look at what is possible in this modern way of building remotely on the island. It's a 14 acre island. They're, they are very remote. Um, and they needed a fully managed design and approach to, to building on the island the actual cottage. It started off at a pretty large 4,000 square feet. It has grown over time. The thing to to know though is that it is built in a way that it is the intent was to be, um, multi-generational and to be able to be built in stages so that they could share it with extended family. So that's the reasoning. Be behind the large footprint. The access is by boat. The owner, um, also exotically enough, their intent was to access the island at times to bring guests in by helicopter. So this is the dream. This isn't everyday construction. This isn't renovation or, or the build. Like this is what it's all about. Your dream. And my dream and someone else's dream might be a little bit different. It can be from a different scale. But the idea is that everyone has an inner dream that we try to, to develop Now. They took their cues or we took our cues from the, the terrace bedrock on the island. Now, there was an existing. Cottage there that was right adjacent to the water. It's only 20 feet from the water. They, we managed to get them a planning approval based on being building over that footprint and then building back away from it. And the idea was to build in terraces that would have the living room and kitchen on one level, bedroom setback on a second level guest rooms on a third level. And originally the idea was that. If you're familiar with it, the project, the, the approach would be similar to Frank Lloyd Wright's falling Water at Bear Run Pennsylvania. Basically what he did was he built over a waterfall in terraces. Now you can't see it from these photos, but when you're inside, these levels pretty much look over the lake in a very unobstructed way. So the idea was a, to have a structure. Heavy Douglass for timbers. A lot of clear glass. The windows pull back and you have a hundred percent openings to the lake. Now a lot of people will say, this is way too modern, you know, for our taste, and this is not what we are used to and so on, which, which is a valid thing. There are a lot of strengths with traditional design that, that has a lower scale perhaps, and, and, um, has some of the. Older style porches and breezeways and all that, that is great. The interesting thing about this project though, is when you're inside and you open the windows, all you see is the lake. So with a modern design, you can get rid of a lot of the, the visual clutter and have more of a direct view to your, your surroundings. Um, some of the like you, if you look at the facade of the building, you can take a small part of it and you can see how you could take this. Large structure, pull off a chunk of it. Perhaps that can be your 1200 or 1800 square foot cottage or 2000 square foot cottage is more of a system than anything. Now some of my uh, influences, I would say they've always been Canadian architects, of course. And I've been drawn to the work of, um, iconic West Coast architects such as Arthur Erickson. You can look up the work that he's done out in uh, uh, Vancouver. Also Ron Tom was an iconic Canadian architect that did a lot of work in North Vancouver. Basically, they were working with, with natural materials in these settings. Now, the owners, in this case, they were world travelers. Um, very successful world travelers. So their case were a little bit different and having visited a lot of very elegant, modern, um, hotels and. And beautiful homes and resorts around the world. They wanted to go a little bit more modern with, with the finishes, which is very interesting when you actually see it in person. Um, what I would suggest to, to viewers is you can take the idea of, of building on levels on your landscape and shifting things around to accommodate the views and you can go with different materials. Currently I'm building all in Douglas for. Clear glass. I'm starting to use corten steel, which is naturally rusting metal materials that actually they, they fit in with the landscape and they look they actually look better as they age. They just get better looking. So that's the idea. We're building on the water. Big open views and you can take it where you want to take it. Do you wanna be, go super modern? The advantage is very clean, austere. Light settings very light and airy. Do you wanna go more rugged? The advantage is those big Douglas fir timbers, reclaimed hemlock, quarry stone, it really gives you a feeling of connection to, to the land. So that was the angle on it and we let it go develop where it did based on the cues from the client. At the end of the day, John, I'm there to develop your ideas. I guide, I don't dictate the design, and we take our cues from the site.

John Tyreman 25:01

And that's a great point. Um, James, is that you and you offer a, a design your dream home guide to your prospective clients who want to help kind of understand their dream and put their dream into words so that you can best help them. Can you share with folks how they can access that guide?

James Pitropov 25:23

Yeah. Um, that guide, it can be accessed through our website. If you uh, just hit uh, lakeside architecture.ca design Your Dream Home Guide. It developed out of a necessity to, um, get the client's ideas focused in a format that we could start discuss um, productive, creative discussions with. So my, my approach is that the expert on the site, it's the owners. It's the clients because they live it, they know the lifestyle. Typically, they will have very strong ideas. And what we wanna do is we wanna take the basic ideas, how they live, how they easily use the properties. In a lot of cases, cottagers have been cottaging for generations. Sometimes on the same property, sometimes multiple places on, on a similar property. And the idea is to take that, that, that history, that knowledge of the site, of the site, and to develop it, not just in terms of a cottage or design, but in terms of socially, who uses the cottage, when do they use it? Is it big groupings, small groupings? Are there friends coming, family, a lot of kids, older people that have may have access issues. And we like to get that. Out of the book right away. And, um, we, I like to hear about the, the, the clients' must haves some, it's just their visual exercises just to communicate the style expectations on how the sites can be used. Questions of, should we start using, would we use it in the winter? You know, would we go up off, would we go snowmobiles? Would we try something different? Are we gonna be boaters or do we like to. Play cards and play badminton, um, in the back, or, or people have tennis courts and, um, sometimes people just have a dock, not just docks are beautiful. They have docks, they'll have a boathouse. It's great to sort that all out. And what it does is when we, when um, clients or anyone that's interested, you get onto that PDF, it's gonna save you time and it's gonna save you headaches. My, my role is to take your basic ideas. And start that process. That process isn't, it's not entirely simple it, it's there to help develop ideas, but we need a place to start. So we start there and I ask clients for their scrapbooks stuff. They've gotten online ideas on how's dot com or any number of numerous websites that have interesting ideas. At the end of the day, though, your design will be very custom and we have to develop it independently. One, the, the way that I work, John, that your viewers might be interested in is I've started to work a lot in 3D because I realize now that we need to work in sync and it's not great for the designer or the architect to go off on a tangent and design something for eight or 12 weeks and not be hearing the client. So what we do is we take the ideas, we start modeling in 3D, I'll get clients on the Zoom, and we're designing live, like now it's live. So if you come to me and you've got your great modern idea, and we have like some early modern or some early thoughts about an open space and maybe it, it has cantilevers over approaching the water or different views, I like to get that down in 3D modeling and then we start to tweak it and we can drag and drop different windows and rooms and orientation and flip things and then go check it on the site. This is the way that, that is productive, that people really love. And it all starts with that design guide on Lakeside architecture.ca.

John Tyreman 29:05

What I love about this, James, is you can't design your dream home without communicating your dream, and that dream home guide is a way for clients to communicate that dream to you. I love the fact that you're using 3D modeling because that creates an instant feedback loop that clients are able to see with their eyes. In a three dimensional way. They're not just looking at site plans or they're not just hearing the vision, they're seeing it, they're putting themselves in there virtually. Um, so I think that's, that's fantastic. And folks that want to learn more about that design guide, go to Lakeside architecture.ca. James, before we, before we break this episode, I've got one, one last question for you.

James Pitropov 29:46

Do you have a birding question there, John?

John Tyreman 29:48

we're looking right now at the Bass Island cottage on lakeside architecture.ca and you mentioned that the original owners of this cottage wanted to have, um, access via helicopter. Where on the island is, do they land? The helicopter.

James Pitropov 30:04

That's a great question, John. you have a look at that aerial photo, and if you look at the building right on top of the building, that was the spot there. You, you would land directly. You take your, the guests coming in internationally to Toronto, and then you fly up to your, to your dream island and the entertainment begins.

John Tyreman 30:26

Excellent. Well, James, this has been a fantastic conversation. I learned a ton about what it takes to build a cottage on an island I'm sure our listeners have as well. Um, if you're listening to this and wanna learn more, go to lakeside architecture.ca and thank you for listening to Build the unbuildable, a podcast about building high-end homes in impossible places.