Wood-Frame Home Call Of The Wild

Elegant yet understated, this lakeside retreat provides the perfect counterpoint to its owners’ fast-paced city lives

- Rachel Leedham

When Anne Hepfer first met her Canadian husband, the idea of loading up the car at the weekends to head to a lakeside home was somewhat ba±ing to the dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker, but since moving to Toronto in 2004, this has become her way of life. ‘We retreat and reconnect with nature. It is such a grounding experience,’ says Anne who, during the week, works around the clock running a successful interior design practice. ‘We don’t use the car here; we travel by boat. We have two sets of twins, aged twelve and eight, and three of the four children already have boating licences; it’s incredibly liberating for them and enormous fun.’

RUGGED BEAUTY