The House Built on Friendship

Jeff McLean knows that it takes 217 steps to walk the labyrinth he and his wife, Carol, have created in their back garden. “It was meant to be a meditation garden, but rather than blanking my mind and feeling the vibe as I walk through it, I too often find myself deadheading or pulling weeds,” says Jeff. 

In 1994 the McLeans purchased the roughly one-acre Caledon property from Perry Borden, grandson of Robert Borden, Canada’s eighth prime minister, whose portrait graces our $100 bill. “Perry, a Toronto lawyer, was a weekender in Caledon, and used the original cottage on the property for overflow houseguests,” says Jeff.

Carol recalls the first time they stopped in front of the For Sale sign posted by the roadside. “There was no driveway at all. We just drove off the road onto grass, but when I got out of the car and saw the view, with horses in the field next door, I was sold,” she says.

Planning to replace the cottage, which had seen better days, with a home suitable for their family of five, the McLeans sold their Brampton house and bought a prefabricated Cape Cod-style house from Viceroy Homes.

Having spent his entire career with the Brampton fire department, Jeff has lost count of the number of additions, decks and garages he has worked on over the years with his fellow firefighters. He knew he could count on his friends to help him put together his new home.

“Firefighters are generally known as ‘how-to’ guys … they either know how to do things on their own or have connections to others who do. My buddies on the force came through in spades,” he says.

The first load of building materials, which included pre-cut framing lumber as well as everything else needed to get going, arrived by enormous flat-bed truck in time to start the build on the 1996 Victoria Day weekend, and the McLeans moved into their new home that October. With the exception of the brick cladding and drywall, Jeff and his friends put together the entire home in a little more than four months.

In addition, a geothermal system comprising 2,000 feet of plastic pipe running six-to-eight feet underground harnesses the earth’s energy for heating in the winter and cooling in the summer. “I can’t tell you how happy we have been with that decision,” says Carol. “The initial $10,000 investment, although enormous for us at the time, has paid for itself many times over.”

The couple’s three daughters, all now in their 30s, live within a day’s drive of the family home: Brittany in Kingston, Chelsea 20 minutes away in Caledon, and Laura in Ottawa. Each has a busy career and a full life.

But the family’s early time in Caledon presented challenges. As the weather grew colder, they lived in a borrowed tent trailer that they parked in a room in the unfinished house – and used the less-than-inviting kitchen and bathroom in the old cottage. “Two of the kids started at Caledon schools in September of that year, and the family was virtually camping on the property as the house went up,” says Carol. “Jeff had to lay skids down over the slush and mud for the girls to get to the school bus.”

But both Jeff and Carol fondly remember the many kindnesses that came their way in the form of casseroles and good deeds offered by friends and neighbours.

Today, the four-bedroom, 3½-bathroom home is tastefully furnished with a variety of soft seating collected over the years from members of both Carol’s and Jeff’s families, as well as treasures picked up at the second-hand stores and garage sales the two enjoy frequenting. One of these is a chandelier they first saw at a friend’s home in Bramalea. It eventually ended up in a yard sale, where they picked it up for $5. Since then, it has been equally at home in the children’s bedroom in Brampton and in the dining room in Caledon – and it now resides over the antique claw foot soaking tub in the master bathroom.

Jeff began building a free-standing two-car garage in 2013. “We had some permitting issues with it, and I was in no hurry to finish it,” he says. It was eventually completed in 2017 and is now affectionately called Man Cave 2. (Man Cave 1 is a much smaller version in the main house.)

In Jeff’s case, Man Cave 2 is not a massive TV-centric room with a bar and leather furniture; rather, it is home to a scarlet red 1964 Pontiac Parisienne Custom Sport convertible built in Oshawa and willed to him by his Uncle Ken.

“Only 2,400 of these cars were ever built. Everything on this car is GM parts,” Jeff says. He is in the process of installing new front disc brakes to go with its V8 engine and will eventually sell it to a rare-car collector.

A David Suzuki photo on the wall was a gift from his crew when he retired from the Brampton fire department. And a hockey sweater sporting Number 00 above the words “This side up” is a reminder of the 10 years he played goal for a Brampton fire department team.

A cool gift Jeff gave himself when he retired is a 2010 BMW motorcycle. To honour firefighters lost in the line of duty, a commemorative coin issued by the Canadian Fallen Firefighters Foundation is embedded in its frame. With various groups of friends, Jeff has toured north to James Bay, circled Lake Superior and travelled south to the Eastern and Midwestern United States.

But his long bike trips might soon be coming to an end. “On the bike all day, plus sleeping on the ground at a campsite at night, takes its toll,” he says ruefully.

Carol spends many hours each week on Zoom calls in her comfortable office in the lower level of the home. She gradually shifted from her original accounting practice to focus her life-coaching skills on helping at-risk youth, and she now conducts spiritual readings and provides neuroscience coaching for coaches in many disciplines. More information can be found at carolmclean.ca.

The house is now nearly 30 years old, and the windows in the kitchen and eating nook still attract an enormous amount of natural light and feature the same beautiful views of the countryside (and the next-door horses, although not the original group), but the McLeans recently decided that a kitchen upgrade was in order.

With the help of Paul Violo of Fox Custom Woodworks in Erin, Jeff and Carol revamped their kitchen layout, incorporating upgraded cabinetry and generous quartz countertops.

But the pièce de résistance is the live-edge black walnut island countertop, which Jeff purchased from Old Schoolhouse Mill, Mike Frencel’s Caledon live-edge wood-slab business. To showcase the distinct shape, grain and character of each piece of wood, Mike slowly and carefully kiln dries the slabs until the moisture level is between six and eight per cent. This ensures each piece is not only functional, but also a lasting work of art.

For the McLeans’ countertop, two pieces of wood from the same tree were joined, a process called “book-matching,” then planed down to the correct thickness by Mike’s friend Matt Pittock of Country Woodworks in Dundalk.

At that point, the wood was ready for finishing, a job Jeff did with loving care and precision. He also salvaged a few pieces of live edge and used them to finish the open shelves in the kitchen.

Many years ago, the McLeans planted three maple seedlings at the rear of the property, each representing one of their daughters. Now more than 30 feet tall, the trees are thriving. The large, productive kitchen garden flourishes nearby, and a variety of birds, cheerfully creating their own soundtrack, take advantage of the various birdhouses Jeff has built and placed around the property.

“This home is an intrinsic part of who we are as a couple, and as a family. I can’t imagine our life anywhere else,” says Jeff.