Furnished Suites - Features

Your home is your castle

Take a peek inside this beautiful home via our virtual tour

The romance and majesty of a bygone era are articulated and presented in this new great hall home. Hardwood, marble, granite abound throughout with a classic New England Gothic exterior. Exotically finished class B recording studio/home interior; style is what it's all about!

19 foot ceilings, Copper turrets, acoustically designed interior, fully stocked kitchen (sub zero, etc), European hot water heated floors, nanny's suite and lots more, all in a private compound. Secured driveway and pedestrian gate let you enter a very special oasis located in the best part of Vancouver, quiet and yet extremely well located to the buzz of the city.

The concept of this home was built on a re-visitation to the great hall homes of the past. In the past, around four to five hundred years ago, when the royalty of the time was finishing their waring, there came a period of entertaining in grand style. You see, the castles were cold and damp and were designed to keep people out. Now, with society beginning, it became more appropriate to invite, to entice, and most of all - to impress the other royalties. In the beginning these homes were somewhat simple summer houses (away from the castles, unfriendliness, and torture chambers) but over  time, they transposed into much more. During this era, indoor bathrooms, formal bedrooms with doors, hallways, running water and large windows were just being discovered. Home-layouts were just being configured and understood in relation to the residents and guests. Yes, this was the time that single family homes (not huts) were being designed.

The first great hall homes were often unusual: with bedrooms connecting to each other and a central hall that had no windows, but just doors leading to everything. As time passed, the royalty came to try to impress their family and friends with their wealth and good taste (perhaps the very beginnings of "keeping up with the Jones"). Size meant everything , scale was larger than necessary and the most important thing was to make jaws drop when guests entered. The guests knew they were with someone of extreme importance and power and were to some extent (if they didn't possess similar or greater) at a negotiated disadvantage. Except for the very rich, the great hall homes were beyond the reach of the common man, but as the industrial age came about the great hall homes were emulated by every carpenter and craftsman in the building of their homes. The concept of home/castle is rooted together and this is how the phrase "your home is your castle" came to be.

More logical layouts became more common with the creation of the hall entry, through hall and eventually cross hall plans. Sadly as the royalty riches faded and the competition to outdo each other became less of a priority, so did the Great Hall homes. The Great Hall homes became a bit of a dinosaur and never really evolved any further.

At the Regius Group we have always felt that the many branches of home design are still changing and it was worthwhile to review the Great Hall home concept design that had been forgotten about.

Commonly today, home design has gone to more open plan designs and alternate function room use with recording studios and theaters being incorporated in their layouts. Instead of setting out separate rooms or spaces it was felt that media applications so often cross over that the space should be able to be incorporate all uses at any time. So this is our 2000 Great Hall home and we hope your jaw drops!