A COASTAL REFUGE

Two university friends teamed up to build this hidden Nova Scotia haven

- Alex Cyr

TERI APPLEBY AND NOVA TAYONA met in 1995 while waitressing together as students at Dalhousie University. In late 2012, they caught up over coffee; by this point, Tayona was an architect, and Appleby was a homemaker and mother of two sons. While they chatted, Appleby happened to describe the cottage she'd been dreaming about for her family. She wanted a summer escape from her century-old home in downtown Halifax-some place near nature with direct access to water and an open-concept main floor.

She and her husband, Keith Dwyer, had already toured the South Shore of Nova Scotia in search of the perfect property, but none of the cottages for sale appealed to them: the lots were too small and the buildings too run down. So they switched gears. After months scouring for vacant beachside land, the family finally bought a nearly four-acre property shrouded in tamarack and spruce trees in Shelburne County, two hours southwest of Halifax. Located barely 100 metres from the Atlantic shoreline, the lot peered over the secluded Louis Head Beach and a kilometre-long stretch of white sand.