Lake Bonavista, Calgary, AB
Design, Drafting, Construction Consultation
The Lake House is an award-winning fine dining restaurant on the shore of Lake Bonavista and part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Resorts family, with an identity built on bringing the feel of the old Canadian Rockies into the city. The building it occupies is half a century old, which brought both constraints and opportunities. The task was to make that aging structure express a lodge-inspired Rockies character while staying deeply connected to its lakeside setting.
This was a collaboration first and foremost, working alongside a client with strong design sensibilities, a sculptural designer, and a woodworker skilled in salvage. The building’s existing bones did much of the work once we leaned into them. Exposed ceilings, uncovered through the renovation, gave the interior its lodge feel almost for free. Windows were retrofitted with double-hung, depression era replacements, both to suit the period character and to hold the essential connection between the room and the lake beyond it. The existing fireplace was kept but reimagined in precast concrete to carry a railroad era weight. Throughout, salvaged and weathered materials, dark woods, a period bar, a distressed window-clad backsplash, were chosen to build warmth and a sense of an era gone by.
The feel of the old Canadian Rockies resonates through the finished space. Structural beams and rafters carry the eye from inside to out, serene lake views anchor the room to its setting, and a seat at the salvaged bar lets the warmth of the materials do the rest. Working with a strong team and a rare building, we helped bring the Rockies to Lake Bonavista.
