“His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking, best, or a pleasant mixture of them all.”J.R. Tolkien
I had the good fortune this past week of visiting Filberg Lodge and Heritage Park in Comox, BC. The grounds and Lodge were donated to Comox by Bob and Florence Filberg who bought the property, originally as a summer house, but soon fell in love with it and decided to make it their full-time residence. Through years of hard work the Filberg's created a beautiful home and grounds and here are a few photographs to give you a glimpse of this island paradise.
You enter the garden below at the estate and in the middle is a lovely grape arbour which leads you to the walkway down to the family home. As we walked through the arbour hundreds of tiny green grapes hung overhead waiting to mature in the sun.
Unfortunately, this picture did not turn out as planned, but after leaving the arbour you can head off to another garden on your right or go straight ahead and walk down to where the family home is located on the waterfront.
These steps lead to the back of the home just off the road that winds around and ends up in the front of house. Everywhere there was beautiful stone work and dazzling flower beds.
The shingled building ahead is where you can purchase afternoon tea and enjoy the seaside view.
This is the outside of the family home facing the waterfront.
This is the living room which my pictures do no do justice to. The timber in the walls is "Pacific Yew" a wood I had not heard of before this visit. The mantlepiece of the fireplace is full of knots and has a rugged riply appearance. They went to great efforts to get this affect by leaving the wood in tide pool for 6 months.
This table in the living room had these wonderfully detailed tiles inlaid into it.
The Master Bedroom
The Dining Room
Off the Dining Room is where the family ate their breakfast. On the right wall was a little sliding door (difficult to make out in this photo) so meals could be passed through from the kitchen.
The main staircase to the second floor with steps made of railway ties and the post is a tree and one of it's branches was left to make the railing. The carpenter who built this home was a true craftsman!
A second floor bedroom with a fantastic ocean view and such a lovely window.
A few more shots of the beautiful garden.
I would love to read more on the Filberg Family and learn about their transformation of this property where so many items have a story. It is definately a place I plan to visit again!
Gillian
"A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it"
George Moore
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