A Grand Beach Cottage

A Grand Beach Cottage
Grows Up
Space-saving ideas
and unique features
Audrey and Gerry Labelle’s bigger and better cottage features a
retractable awning with a wireless wind sensor that
automatically closes it if it gets too breezy.
20
the cottager
www.thecottager.com
STORY BY SHELLEY PENZIWOL
Photos by Artistic Impressions
A
t Gerry and Audrey Labelle’s
one-and-a-half-storey Grand
Beach cottage, it’s hard to
resist the urge to run up and down the
stairs – especially in the dark.
Equipped with motion-activated LED
stair lighting, each interior stair light
turns on in sequence as you go up or
down the stairs, and the lights turn off
when you exit the stairwell. A ‘rippled’
domino effect, but with stair lights
instead of dominoes. A safety feature
in the dark, the product by Reactive
Lighting also adds a bit of ‘wow’ factor to
the Labelle cottage.
Then there’s the SunSetter retractable
awning with a wireless wind sensor that
extends almost three metres from the
cottage, shading the front deck.
“It’s so neat,” explains Gerry. “If you
go to the beach and it gets windy, it will
close by itself.”
The owner of Labelle Construction
and a full-time builder since retiring
from the school system a decade ago,
Gerry has the motivation to seek new
products and the knowledge to install
them.
He picked up the stair lighting for
just under $700 (contractor pricing) and
bought the awning on sale at Costco for
about $2,200 with delivery.
Equally practical are the ductless
air conditioners in the upstairs
bedrooms that keep things cool when
the temperature soars. They’re ductless
because there’s no forced-air system in
the cottage.
The large panels of electrical switches
in the cottage attest to Gerry’s love of all
things electrical, including lighting, lots
of lighting, such as the pot ones spaced
out every one-and-a-half or so metres in
the main living room area.
The Labelle cottage wasn’t always so
technologically sophisticated.
The couple bought the Grand Beach
cottage in 1979. Audrey’s family had
been renting a cottage in Grand Marais
every summer since she was three years
old, so when she and Gerry married and
decided to buy their own place, “there
was no discussion about where we were
going to be,” she says with a chuckle.
Situated on a lot only 33 feet wide
and 75 feet deep, the Labelle cottage
was initially 480 square feet, with
An upper-storey addition in 2011 gave the Labelles another 400 square feet or so of living space. A friend played a joke
during construction, nailing a wooden cross to the front of the roof trusses to baffle neighbours about what was being built.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF GERRY LABELLE.
May/june 2015
21
an additional 140 square feet of
screened-in deck.
Sounds like a cosy cabin on a tiny
lot, but it was the norm in Grand
Beach Provincial Park, which has
its roots as a bustling, close-knit
railway resort.
In 1914, the Canadian Northern
Railway (later the Canadian
National Railway) acquired land to
develop a resort on the east side of
Lake Winnipeg to rival the Canadian
Pacific Railway’s development across
the lake on the west side at Winnipeg
Beach. In 1916, the first train arrived
at Grand Beach and Manitoba’s most
popular beach was launched.
While many beach-goers visited
for the day, the railway started
leasing lots to people who wanted
to pitch a tent for longer stays.
Wooden platforms were built as
tent floors. By the 1930s, walls and
roofs were added and, before you
knew it, railway camps became basic
cottages.
By the time Grand Beach became
one of Manitoba’s first four large
provincial parks in 1961 (in addition
These stair lights go on and off in a domino effect when you walk up and down the steps.
22
the cottager
www.thecottager.com
to Duck Mountain, Turtle Mountain and
Whiteshell), the cottage community was
well-established. To this day, the cottage
subdivision with more than 500 cottages
remains the most intensely developed area
of the park. As well, many more cottages are
located outside of the park in the adjacent
community of Grand Marais.
Because both Audrey and Gerry were
teachers (and Gerry later a counsellor and
school administrator), entire summers were
spent at the cottage. Audrey, Gerry, son
David, daughter Chantal and often their best
friends would relocate to the beach for fun,
sun and relaxation.
The small cottage was crammed, but it
worked perfectly well for the first few decades.
At least until the grandkids came along.
That had Gerry turning his attention to
renovating their own cottage after building
many homes and cottages for others.
Cottage development guidelines for
Grand Beach had changed since the Labelles
bought the cottage. Current guidelines allow
cottages on lots 33 feet wide to be a maximum
of 742 square feet on the main floor. Still
compact, so Gerry set about planning the
most effective way to reconfigure and add to
the original building.
Since current guidelines allow cottages to be
one-and-a-half storeys, that was the solution.
“The roof has to start at the floor,” Gerry
points out, explaining the A-frame-like,
upper-storey addition built in 2011 gave them
another 400 square feet or so of useable living
space.
“We started September 5 and by September
21, I had it shingled. We were lucky, we had
only one night with a bit of rain.” A big tarp
covered the cottage when it wasn’t being
worked on.
One friend even played a joke, nailing a
wooden cross to the front of the roof trusses
to baffle neighbours about what was being
built, Gerry recalled with a laugh.
Once the cottage was weather-proofed,
the inside could be reconstructed, including
completely new electrical and plumbing.
Again, Gerry used practical and spacesaving ideas.
Putting the hot water tank under the staircase and
building a storage area was an efficient, space-saving
idea.
A door that used to be at the back of the cottage was moved to the side off the kitchen for more functional access to
the deck and barbecue.
May/june 2015
23
Both upstairs bedrooms have dormers for some extra head room and windows on the
gable walls.
became permissible, the Labelles added a toilet
in a closet in one bedroom and a small shower
in a closet in the other. The renovation allowed
for the addition of a full bathroom on the main
floor near their master bedroom.
The partially open staircase adds to the
feeling of spaciousness in the main living area.
And because the staircase is in the middle of
the cottage, the upper landing separates the
two upstairs bedrooms. Between those two
bedrooms, Gerry was able to fit a small second
bathroom with a toilet and sink.
Each upstairs bedroom has a dormer for
some extra head space and lots of windows on
the gable walls. One upstairs bedroom is for the
grandkids.
“Put the kids in one room. I don’t care if they
talk all night. That’s part of the fun,” Gerry says.
All in all, he’s satisfied with the end result.
“I had visions of a lake with a dock and a
boat where I could go fishing and that would be
nice,” he says about his early thoughts of owning a cottage.
“But you know what I love about Grand Beach? It’s a great place
to raise the kids.”
To the Labelles, family is what the Grand Beach cottage is all
about. And in the last three-and-a-half decades, Gerry and Audrey
have seen their kids, their grandkids and their cottage grow up. C
Ductless air conditioners in the upstairs bedrooms keep things cool.
The hot water tank, for example, is now in a storage closet under the
staircase instead of under the cottage in a crawlspace. Opening one hot
water tap and one cold water tap allows him to easily drain the water
lines in the fall.
“Limit the amount of hallway” is one of his top tips for maximizing
use of space.
The original cottage was bisected by a narrow hallway that led to
a rear door. In the new configuration, he added a side door off the
kitchen, which exits to a side deck allowing direct access to an outdoor
grill – convenience Audrey loves when preparing meals for the family.
Removal of the hallway and rear door, plus the addition of an extra two
metres at the back of the cottage, meant the two main-floor bedrooms
would gain some much-needed space.
When the Labelles bought the cottage in 1979, wastewater holding
tanks were not yet allowed so cottagers used community washrooms
located throughout the cottage subdivision. When holding tanks
May/june 2015
25