456 Cold Creek Rd., Prince Edward County, Ont.
Asking price: $1,489,000
Lot size: 280 by 170-feet
Taxes: $2,323 (2026)
Listing agents: Faye Moxam, Jenna Ash-DeMille, Chestnut Park Real Estate Ltd.
The backstory
Most people scrolling social media for exciting or exotic real estate are spectators, curious but not necessarily planning to buy the homes they like or share. But sometimes the house you hit “like” on is something you really, really like.
“During COVID-19 I was on Instagram a lot, like a lot of people,” said David Kelly. He and his husband, Paul, had been talking about buying property in Ontario’s cottage country, but Muskoka prices were going through the roof. So he started to pay more attention to Prince Edward County.
He found himself returning often to pictures posted by a company called Retreat Homes, which was reno-flipping old farmhouses. “I was kind of thirsty for content and started to engage with them, comment on stuff they would post,” he said.
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In the fall of 2021, the house he had been watching come together reached a stage where he believed he could see the vision, but wanted to get up close and personal. The builders were open to his interest in visiting and invited him to tour what was still a construction zone. “Half the house didn’t have a roof, it was crazy, and Paul, he did not know what we were doing out here,” Mr. Kelly said.
Interest thoroughly established, Mr. Kelly was eager to listen when the builders reached out again in early 2022, inviting him to make an offer. “I went in blind with my first offer, and they accepted it right away,” he said. By August, 2022, the home was finished, and his.
A glassed-in wine storage area sits under the stairs.Photography by Dan Fleury Photography
The house today
From the road, the home looks like your textbook modern farmhouse: white boards for siding, pitched and peaked roof lines, black shingles, trim, windows and doors. An L-shaped porch extends from the main entrance next to the garage and wraps around the front.
Inside, a large foyer connects to a powder room and glass-door access to the back deck, which wraps around to the right, meeting up with the kitchen and dining area. A turn to the right from the foyer offers sightlines of the kitchen through a glassed-in wine storage area, which sits under the stairs, separating the formal living room with its fireplace from the kitchen. This room is framed and accentuated by huge, chunky, hand-hewn beams from the original house. “Those beams were buried behind drop ceilings for decades,” Mr. Kelly said. “They uncovered newspaper clippings in the walls, one was from 1890.”
The kitchen is built around a long island that runs at a 90-degree angle to the rustic ceiling beams.
In the final finishing stages of the home, Mr. Kelly had some input on the established plan.
“I was able to weigh in on the tiles and stonework for showers and bathrooms. I requested they do the whole fireplace in stonework that would tie into the kitchen backsplash,” he said.
The kitchen is built around a long island that runs at a 90-degree angle to the rustic ceiling beams. It features white counters and cabinets as well as a stone-tile backsplash, which look like something that’s been there for centuries, behind the gas range and coffee bar areas.
“They were going for that French or Italian rustic feel, they overspackled the tile, they took this resin and kept layering it on top,” Mr. Kelly said. The look smooths the rough stone, and gives it a patina of age and care.
The primary suite has a walk-in closet behind a barn door and a five-piece ensuite bath with double-vanity, walk-in shower and a soaker tub.
A wall of glass with sliding doors in the centre opens the kitchen up to the rear yard, and a second set of sliders gives dinner-table views of the landscaping and neighbouring vineyard beyond.
The white interiors and big windows draw the eye toward the landscaping outside, which features dozens of varieties of perennials.
“I don’t like a ton of colour; when it’s summer, and everything is alive and green outside, I want that to be the art,” Mr. Kelly said.
On the second level, there are three bedrooms, two of which are above the kitchen with access to a shared bathroom. The third is the primary suite built above the garage: It has a walk-in closet behind a barn door and a five-piece ensuite bath with double-vanity, walk-in shower and a soaker tub tucked under corner windows facing the rear yard.
In the summer, the rear yard features dozens of varieties of perennials.
Part-time becomes full-time
In the time between buying the house and when construction was completed, Mr. Kelly’s husband suffered a serious fall and faced a lengthy recovery and a series of follow-up surgeries. The PEC home had been intended as a country retreat, but by the time the medical journey came to an end in 2024, they were both ready for a permanent move out of Toronto and found themselves immediately embraced by the local scene.
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“The community is a really beautiful place. It’s just filled with a lot of Toronto expats and so many creative people that are big dreamers and have come out here and done really cool things,” Mr. Kelly said. With his marketing background, he eventually realized there was a gap in the local landscape and started up an event-planning business called Blank Canvas Events, which leverages the county’s many amenities for corporate retreats and other functions. Their next plan is to buy a red-brick Victorian in one of the county’s towns and restore or upgrade it.
Mr. Kelly has a guilty confession: As a self-styled architecture and design nerd, he’s always wanted to see his house in print. And after finding his country home through media, the chance to showcase it now in a newspaper is a full-circle moment. “It’s a dream come true,” he said.