Community, a design feature on new show

 In Community, Visit Creemore

Design junkies and nosey neighbours can get all the details they want about a local building project by tuning into Sarah – Off the Grid on HGTV starting this Sunday, September 10 at 10 p.m.

The new series features six one-hour episodes which follow Sarah Richardson as she chronicles her most ambitious project to date, for the clients closest to her heart; husband Alexander Younger and daughters Robin and Fiona. For this very personal project Richardson, who introduces herself as one of Canada’s top designers, made a conscious decision to be loud and proud about the location of the build perched on the top of the escarpment just five minutes outside of the village.

“We really shout it from the roof tops that we love Creemore. We want everyone to know how great it is.” said Richardson in a phone interview.

“We joke that we had a 5 mile local crew. We really harnessed the local community.”

They also harnessed the power of the sun on this just-finished project which began in June of 2016. It features a custom 5000 sq ft. home located at the end of a very long driveway, complete with a barn and large solar installation.

Richardson does not take any credit for the off-the -grid nature of the build. Her husband, affectionately awarded the title of Minister of Exteriors, worked to have two barns in Avening moved to the property and re-erected one to provide the optimum location and orientation for the solar array. Younger has been working with solar power for close to two decades. With the new and improved technology now available found powering the large house fairly straight forward, and to date it has worked well.

“It was really a fabulous community effort.” says Richardson. “You will see local residents. We had Ed Leimgardt – we worked with him from the very beginning. All of our building materials came from Hamilton Brothers and Giffen’s fed our crews.”

This is not the first time Richardson has featured a Creemore-based project on her show. Season three of Sarah’s House highlighted their renovation of a Victorian farm house just off Fairgrounds Road. At the time they referred to the place being near Collingwood but this time they were explicit in naming and celebrating the location.

“We think it is the best place on earth and my hope is that the community will be happy that I have let this little secret out, because I want to see more prosperity for Creemore, and hopefully shining a light on Creemore is a good thing for everyone.”

The show runs weekly until October 10. All episodes can also be streamed online at www.hgtv.ca for free. Additional web content is available as well

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