Call of the Wild

Cocktail napkins serve a variety of uses, from dabbing a spill to a
late-night exchange of digits, but for fashion designer Catherine Regehr one served as a canvas for a lifetime of good times. It was on a paper napkin that the fashion designer, whose couture creations are sold at
Saks, Barneys New York in Japan and high-end specialty stores across the U.S. and Canada, sketched out the plans for a log home in the remote community of Atlin, two hours south of Whitehorse, Yukon.

Atlin, in the northwest corner of B.C., once boasted 10,000 residents at
the height of the gold rush, but now only about 500 hardy souls remain. They include a small coterie of artists and authors who are attracted to
the dense pines, crisp temperatures and spectacular sunsets. Vancouver-based Regehr regularly travels between Paris and New York for her fashion
shows, but her roots are in Whitehorse. “I spent my childhood in the
Yukon outdoors and I wanted my own three children to have that same experience,” she says. She also wanted a northern summer retreat to congregate with friends and family.

While land in the North is plentiful, acquiring waterfront property isn’t easy since most of it is Crown-owned land. But when word came of five acres for sale on an undeveloped, wide wedge set on the massive, glacier-fed Atlin Lake, the largest natural lake in B.C., Regehr had to act fast. The property had no access road, so she bushwhacked a path straight to the middle and climbed a pine tree to see if it had a long view of the lake and glacier at the south end. Looking out over the Juneau Icefield she marvelled, “This is the most beautiful place on earth.”

Eventually, it was Nick Milkovich—friend, architect and long-time associate of architect Arthur Erickson—who realized Regehr’s napkin sketch in blueprint format. It turns out that, like couture clothing, today’s log houses require skilled craftsmanship (like perma-chinking to join the logs) and innovative details (like floor-length windows on a second storey). “I always loved the simplicity of old turn-of-the-century log houses, with their dove-tail corners that no one builds anymore,” explains Regehr. She turned to Dennis Odian of Atlin Log Home Construction, who has experience in crafting bespoke log homes.

But without access to usual building conveniences like thawed ground, skilled tradespeople and handy access to hardware stores, Odian and Regehr had to demonstrate the steadfast patience of Klondikers panning for gold. It took a year to build a road in; a year to lay the foundation and for the log home to be built, settle and dry out; and a year for the interior. Other signature details include a grey steel roof (the material was inspired by the roof of the Hotel Vancouver) and a generous 40 linear feet of windows on the main and second floors that satisfied Regehr’s desire to bring the outdoors in.

Regehr maintained a monochromatic colour palette throughout the interior: “Keep tone consistent and play with texture,” is her ethos. So pine floors blend with similarly hued granite counters, which are accented by the tan leather couches. Other highlights include the massive stone Rumford fireplace that “can heat the whole house if the furnace goes out,” says Regehr. The three-metre-long antique table makes large-scale entertaining with friends and family easy: it seats 14, but it’s not uncommon for 20 people to come for potluck.

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