The house is surrounded by woodland, reflecting ponds and a creek. Deer, herons and bears typically go to the property.
(Images by Ema Peter)
On Groveland Street in West Vancouver sits a three-storey amalgamation of glass, metal and chrome well-known for its curved, white metal construction. It’s a masterpiece of late-’70s modernism by one among Canada’s most iconic architects, Arthur Erickson (and, for Liam Neeson followers, it doubled because the glass mansion owned by a drug cartel chief within the 2019 motion flick Chilly Pursuit.) It’s at the moment available on the market for $10.8 million.
The residence, often called Eppich Home II, is called after the couple who commissioned it: Hugo Eppich, a producing tycoon, and his spouse, Brigitte, who have been trying to construct a home for his or her rising household in 1978. Erickson had already designed Eppich Home I, a personal residence for Hugo’s twin brother, Helmut. Hugo and Brigitte have been captivated by Erickson’s modernist design aesthetic, so that they approached him to construct them a house of their very own.
Erickson regarded Eppich Home II as his most full work as a result of he had whole freedom in designing the home, together with a lot of the furnishings. The Eppichs solely had one requirement: that Erickson place a window in each house. And so the residence is wrapped in floor-to-ceiling home windows; even the laundry room has a tall, slender one. Hugo then used Ebco Industries—his metallic fabrication, electroplating and furnishings corporations—to supply custom-made supplies for the home.
Monica Feldman, the Eppichs’ center baby, was 22 when her household moved into the home in 1988; she lived there for the subsequent 4 years earlier than transferring in together with her now-husband. “My favorite factor about the home is how Arthur was capable of carry the surface in,” she recollects.
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The construction is surrounded by woodland, reflecting ponds and a creek, mixing with the floor-to-ceiling glass design. By way of the home windows of the home, Feldman used to observe geese, herons, raccoons and the odd bear go to their property. “Mother would scramble for her cellphone to attempt to take a photograph of a deer standing on our terrace, and Dad as soon as caught a deer strolling down the pathway to the entrance door,” she says.
Liam Neeson was not the one movie star to spend time in the home—Shirley MacLaine and actor Adam Arkin sometimes visited for lunch with the Eppichs. In 2021, producers working with actress and singer Dove Cameron noticed Eppich Home II on Instagram and requested if they may use the home as a set for Cameron’s music video “We Belong.” “The crew began filming at 7 a.m. and didn’t depart till 3 a.m. the next day,” Feldman says. The home has additionally served as a music video set for Sarah McLachlan.
For years, the house was the location of Thanksgiving dinners, pool events and Easter egg hunts. Feldman and her youthful sister Sonia would place eggs all around the property—tucking them beneath blackberry leaves or rocks close to a pond—and let their youngsters seek for them. “It’s hilarious as a result of they’d by no means discover them. We had them hike by means of the property to search out them,” Feldman says.
Hugo and Brigitte lived in the home till 2018. After they moved out, between 2021 and 2023, the household upgraded the plumbing and landscaping, changed all of the carpets and lights, and repainted all of the partitions with brighter colors, amongst different efforts to modernize the house.
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“We’ve tried to determine how we will maintain on to it, however it’s not straightforward,” Feldman says. “It could’ve been good to have this within the household as a result of my dad constructed it. We’re letting go of a chunk of us, however it’s simply a part of life,” she says.
