Their "Upside-Down" Nova Scotian Home Lives Larger Than Its 1,050 Square Feet

When Corey and Jennifer Everett set out to build a house in Nova Scotia—where they first met two decades ago—they wanted more than a typical vacation home. Living in Ontario but longing for the Maritime province, they searched online for years before finding a sloping lot in Upper Kingsburg.

Not only was the location "breathtaking," says Corey—close to protected conservation land and Lunenburg, a world UNESCO heritage site—but the land was owned by architect-developer MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects. "We had the opportunity to work with Brian and his team as the architects," says Corey. "That made the property all that more interesting to me."

Architect Brian MacKay-Lyons and his firm had already built 50 dwellings in this peninsula village over 40 years in an ongoing experiment in community-making, and it’s the place where his own family has put down roots. "If I look out the window, I see my daughter’s house and her horse farm just down the road from these guys," he says.

For the Everetts, MacKay-Lyons set out to design what he calls an "upside-down house"—a 1,050-square-foot, two-bedroom home where you live upstairs and sleep on the lower floor. Since the tricky site slopes from road to creek, stilts offered an economical base. "It floats," says the architect. "You’re up in the air like a birdhouse."

A birdhouse that puts a contemporary spin on the classic Nova Scotia fisherman’s cottage—so much so, Corey says, that they jokingly coined the term "fish shack fabulous" to capture the project’s aesthetic.