It’s not uncommon for a second home to be something of a family affair, but few involve two distinct families and fewer still end up standing atop a bridge truss rather than on a foundation, as is the case with this one.

The story begins in the mid 1970s when two Winnipeggers begin to think about building a seasonal retreat for their growing family of three. They meet another young couple, architect Lloyd Secter and architectural designer Marcia Secter, who contribute the design.

Thirty-five years pass, during which time the Secters design a Headingly, Manitoba, home for the couple. Along the way, their offspring reach the age of maturity, with this pair’s three each relocating to the West Coast, something of an issue for them. With their various careers in the Vancouver area, “It was impossible to get all three kids back to Winnipeg at the same time,” laments the homeowner. Meanwhile, an old friend of the couple’s has been singing the praises of Bowen Island, the commuter Nirvana just off the shores of West Vancouver. On a visit to a development called (with only mild hyperbole) Valhalla, the pair spot a rare undeveloped building lot and buy it. If the kids will not come to them, they will come to the kids.

Meanwhile, the pair is learning that one of the reasons the lot has not been developed is the building challenges it presents. To be sure, the property is stunning. It is perched high on the face of a steep slope offering 180-degree views of the mainland, and it even features a pond, originally built to provide water for fire-fighting purposes. But there is hardly a flat spot to be found; instead, the site is primarily defined by two small rock outcroppings.

Time to call in the Secters. More or less simultaneously, the couple and Lloyd Secter realize the solution is to bridge the 20-metre gap between the two rocks, and to place the home on this. Secter scribbles a T-shaped affair on the proverbial cocktail napkin and “that’s almost exactly the way it came together,” he explains.

End of story. Oh, not exactly end of story. The design and construction process involved three different engineers: one, Winnipeg-based, to work on the truss; a second and third from Vancouver to consider geotechnical concerns and to confirm that fierce uplift winds occasionally blowing up the cliff wouldn’t take off the roof. Meanwhile, the Secters called upon their roster of Winnipeg suppliers to build the doors and windows, design and create the kitchen cabinetry, cast the contoured concrete sinks and so on, ultimately shipping the home’s guts westward to be snapped together by an expert local contractor. On the family front, their son, Dov, by then an architecture student, chipped in the drawings.

There are several things to be learned from the completed project, some surprising, others less so. Considering that the 3,300-square-foot home was designed and largely outfitted by Winnipeggers for Winnipeg clients, it looks surprisingly at peace on its ultra-West-Coast site—more so than many of its neighbours, in fact. And considering that its construction involved building a bridge as well as a dwelling, its cost landed within a range surprisingly in keeping with West Coast norms (those cost-conscious Winnipeg suppliers no doubt had something to do with this).

Less surprisingly, the design-client team combined to produce yet another outstanding home that delivers both exceptional functionality and fetching spaces in which to live. And wouldn’t you know it, the couple’s children are only too happy to drop by their parents’ place during the rapidly expanding portion of the year they now spend on Bowen.