BC Business
Address: 2105 West 57th Avenue, VancouverPrice: $6,500,000MLS: V1130020 The skinny: Brand new five bedroom, seven bathroom, 5850 sq ft house in Kerrisdale on a 9950 sq ft lot. The bling: Beneath an almost perversely pedestrian façade, this is a house that opens, Tardis-like, into the kind of place one imagines Barbie would live after she’d married well. It’s an architectural sonnet to the upscale department store of your dreams: all white marble, walls of Joel Berman glass, and a carpet with a large print designed to hide the vagaries breaking in those Jimmy Choos can wreak. The main feature is the central, 30 ft of open stairwell, with a great bubble light chandelier dropping down for that déjà-vu feel. A house where you don’t have to be insecure about the design touches – such as the ludicrously outsized “lounge area” facing a huge, glass-walled, temperature-controlled wine room, with a bar that only a professional cocktail shaker, sorry, mixologist, should stand behind–because they scream expensive in the most unchallenging, conventional way. A bit like your (much less expensive) Ikea bookcases – so predictable, no one even sees them. The hidden extras: Well, we all know Vancouver is getting hotter–there were at least three days last month alone that felt almost steamy–so the built in air-conditioning will be worth every pretty penny as climate change pushes up the mercury more than a few times a year.