Denis Dumas constructed his dream trip residence to recall sizzling days and nights by the seaside
(Pictures courtesy of Sotheby’s Worldwide Realty Québec)
Montreal entrepreneur Denis Dumas doesn’t sort out initiatives half-heartedly. He spent 18 years remodeling a 2,800-square-foot, California-style home with 360-degree views right into a mini seaside resort. He calls it “Cuba in Quebec”: a vacationland with a karaoke stage, a full cabana and tiki bar, an indoor cocktail station and even palm timber.
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Quickly after buying the property, Dumas took a four-year work hiatus to handle extreme job burnout and moved to the home full-time. “I used to be a workaholic and wanted a spot to sit back out,” stated Dumas, who’s 59 and semi-retired from his job as basic supervisor and founding father of Sommeil Davantage, a bedding retailer. “This began as a easy refuge from work, after which it morphed into one thing particular.” Again then, the house had none of its southern themes: it had a contemporary design and quick access to the close by slopes. Then, within the early 2010s, as soon as moved again to Montreal and returned to work, Dumas listed the home on Airbnb and stored it there for 2 years, the place it turned successful with Montrealers and Ontarians on the lookout for a weekend escape. In 2014, he delisted it and began utilizing it as his personal. Round that point, he was making frequent journeys to and from Cuba to promote adjustable beds, and fell in love with its tropical aesthetic and life-style. “I turned obsessive about eager to recreate that environment proper right here for my accomplice and buddies to get pleasure from.”
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Dumas employed a grounds crew to flatten the mountainside yard, which was slanted 45 levels. The crew packed the terrain with sand and stone to raise it 14 ft and compressed all of it with a curler. They coated a lot of the yard in concrete tiles and put in a badminton courtroom and a hardwood platform that holds a tiki bar, which flanks a therapeutic massage desk and room. Close to the again hedge, he constructed a sauna and a concrete sizzling tub with a waterfall, and put in hammock-style chairs that face an in-ground pool surrounded in sizzling rocks.
He completed the yard by digging 9 scattered holes, all 4 ft deep, and planting 10-foot synthetic palm timber, every of them costing as much as $14,000. The yard revamp, after paying on-site staff and a constructing supervisor, price Dumas greater than $500,000; an quantity he stated was properly well worth the month-to-month summer time pool events with buddies and neighbours that spanned afternoons.
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Dumas additionally renovated components of the house’s inside to match the Cuban theme. He reworked the household room right into a cabaret-style lounge that connects to the yard and has an elevated stage and full encompass sound for karaoke nights. The stage faces a bar with a row of stools and a recessed blue quartz backdrop. Left of the stage, a spiral staircase twirls upward to the bedrooms and a second-storey porch that appears over the yard. Past the dazzle, the house additionally has the bones to swimsuit a household: a double storage, a full chef’s kitchen with a marble countertop and backsplash, and a fuel hearth to maintain the house toasty within the wintertime.
Over the past decade, the Dumas dwelling turned a frequent gathering hub for his household and buddies, who are available in crowds as giant as 50 for his Huge Smoke celebration each July 8. Yr after 12 months, the bonanza concerned Mediterranean eats, free massages, customized cocktails, a karaoke competitors, a dwell orchestra taking part in properly into the evening, and the principle occasion: a pig roast.
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However final 12 months’s get together might properly have been the final one Dumas will spend surrounded by Quebec palm timber. As he approaches retirement, he has chosen to swap his Cuban-inspired casa for the true factor, spending a lot of his time within the island nation so he can study extra Spanish, watch extra dwell jazz, and have an occasional mojito. Nonetheless, placing the house up on the market was a troublesome resolution for Dumas. He says that, for all its extravagance, what he’ll miss most in regards to the place are its easy pleasures, like sitting on the west-facing deck’s Muskoka chairs and watching the sundown.
In the meantime, he hopes the following homeowners respect it to the fullest. His realtor, Stephane Larrivée, says the itemizing is already attracting vital curiosity from folks in Toronto, the place $1.2 million can purchase little greater than an everyday townhouse; in addition to from firms and companies who wish to purchase the place and use it for company retreats. Dumas has a hunch that it’s going to fall into the arms of an entertainer who, like him, has a factor for tropical themes and basic eccentricity.
“I’m regretful to see it go, however I’m so pleased with this mission. It turned an important supply of enjoyment away from work, and a solution to join extra deeply with my household and buddies,” he says. “Now, it’s time to present another person that luxurious.”
