Curves Ahead

Rounded island of walnut and maple creates flow in pied-à-terre

Photography DREW HADLEY | Styling JEAN MONET

It was a designer’s dream. Marc Paradis had been given carte blanche to create a unique and innovative home.

The Montreal interior designer had been asked by his European client to design a penthouse in Les Cours Mont-Royal that would serve as a pied à terre in the city.

And the best part? The budget was open-ended.

So Paradis, an interior designer who has worked for Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté, got to work on a design that would dazzle his clients.

The kitchen, he decided, would be the centre of the 2,000-square-foot penthouse. And despite the room’s modest size at 12-by-11-feet, it would make a powerful design statement.

The show-stopping element here is the island, which is devoid of straight lines and corners. The curvaceous unit stands atop three thick legs, each of which is a different shape. “The top of the island is walnut. The legs are Quebec maple,” says Paradis.

And there’s plenty of visual interest and texture. Embedded in the island’s surface are pieces of porphyry, a semi-transparent gold-coloured stone, cut into shapes resembling eggs and crescent moons.

The rounded surface of the island, says Paradis, permits a flow through the apartment for the owners when they entertain. “It also makes the space seem larger,” he says.

There is a sense of the Space Age in the design, of the surreal. Above the island, Paradis suspended two curvilinear wood slabs. The upper one is made of the walnut used in the island; the lower one is the maple that was used to craft the island’s legs. They appear to float above the kitchen, creating a focal point.

And what is fascinating, says Isabelle Perreault, is the rounded pieces of porphery and pieces of glass in three circular insets on the slabs, which mirror the stone on the island’s surface.

Perrault is the real estate broker with Sotheby’s International Realty Quebec who is selling the penthouse, which is on the market for $2,050,000.

The flooring is B.C. fir, set in place with square-headed wood dowels rather than nails.

Paradis took his design cues throughout the penthouse from Asia. “I was inspired by the cultures of the world,” he says.

Open shelves in the kitchen are made of the same solid walnut used in the island. They allow the homeowners to display attractive kitchenware.

There is a sense of the organic in this space. In addition to using various kinds of wood, Paradis used slate on the counters and backsplash. Above the Miele range, strips of the grey stone are laid vertically. In the corner, above the counter, they’re horizontal. Strips of slate were also installed on the cabinet doors.

“It’s all very artistic,” says Perreault. That’s what you get when you turn a creative designer loose.