Brian O'Brian's Hemlock House, a farm-inspired weekend home in Markdale, Ontario

Hemlock House began as a modest renovation of a small 1930s farmhouse and ended up as something else entirely: a new weekend home on a 72-acre property in Markdale, in southern Ontario. Toronto architect Brian O'Brian got the job after the client saw his conversion of a stone-walled 19th-century schoolhouse nearby, and he looked to the region's barns and farm sheds for the design.

You arrive along a long driveway past the old farmhouse and a century-old barn, which sets up the house itself: a long two-storey bar with a sloping metal roof, joined to a box topped with an angled green roof. The north side is a slanted wall of corrugated metal, its three windows shuttered by perforated steel panels that slide up and down. O'Brian wanted it to read as agricultural at first glance, then soften as you get closer.

The south side opens up in hemlock siding and generous glass towards patios and a pool. Inside, bedrooms sit in the bar and the kitchen, dining and living spaces in the box, with concrete and hemlock on, in the architect's words, "every surface".

It's a private home, so this one is for looking rather than visiting, but a thoughtful read for anyone drawn to rural modern houses.

Our summary of a story from Dezeen, published 4 November 2026. Read the original

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