770 MILLGROVE SIDE Rd., Millgrove, Ont.
Asking price: $5,999,000
Land Size: 52.135 acres
Annual Property Taxes: $15,335.49 (2026)
Listing agent: Martinus Geleynse, Corcoran Horizon Realty
The backstory
On a rural road north of Hamilton sits a modernist architectural showpiece that uses the landscape to play down its ambitious design.
In 2013, Wendy and Chris McNally had removed the nonproducing apple trees from a former orchard they owned and discovered what was left on the 50-acre piece of land were many of the tree species – oak, cherry, walnut – common to the Carolinian forest. It seemed the perfect place to build a custom home that fit their needs as they approached retirement.
“It was the first time we’d built a home from scratch,” said Mrs. McNally, who said in the late 1980s she and her mining engineering husband had bought a lot from a developer, with hopes to get a home with a farmhouse feel. “They came up with a plan, but you didn’t have as much say in what you were getting. There was constrictions working with a developer like that.”
Luckily, this time they had a nephew who was just beginning his career in architecture and who leapt at the challenge to create a home that incorporates ancient styles, natural materials, modern sustainable technology and fits within the land. “I had been working since 2009, but it’s a pretty significant project at that point in my career and also for the firm,” said Graham McNally, one of the principals of Toms + McNally Design.
Graham McNally spent a lot of time figuring out how to organize the space to best suite his aunt and uncle's needs.Tyler Davies/Tyler Davies
From the outside, the result appears to be a modest single-storey ranch bungalow, but when viewed from the pool deck or gardens feels like a much grander – even palatial – two-level manse. Seen from above, the floor plan zigs and zags, but it’s all aimed at livability.
“With subdivision houses there’s so little consideration for how people live; it’s all about efficiency for the builder,” said Mr. McNally, who spent a lot of time early on figuring out how his aunt and uncle wanted to spend their time with their still-growing family. “This house, you can tell it’s sort of funny shaped, but it’s all organized around that idea about the way people were going to live in it and how it facilitates their life.”
The house today
At the end of the long driveway is a paved courtyard that squares off the space between the attached three-car garage that extends at a 90-degree angle from the main living space.
The formal foyer at the opposite end of the square collects visitors into the bottom corner of the L-shaped living space. Directly ahead is the guest bedroom and primary suite on the short side of the L, and to the left is a long hallway that connects to the great room, dining room, and kitchen. On the other side is an office facing the courtyard and a spacious mud-room/laundry room off the garage. A hallway culminates in what the McNallys call the “hearth room,” a den with a large limestone fireplace mantel wall just off the kitchen.
An office an office on the main floor faces the courtyard.Tyler Davies/Tyler Davies
But the heart of the building is that enormous central volume that is double-height and contains the great room, dining room and kitchen. These spaces are separated by walls that don’t extend all the way to the Douglas-fir clad ceiling that seems to float above the whole space, levitating on a cushion of light from the clerestory windows that wrap around on all four sides.
“Graham did an absolutely marvellous job of giving us the room sizes that we needed for when everyone was there, but still making it feel like an intimate home,” said Mrs. McNally. “You didn’t feel like you were in a big barn of a room when there were just the two of us.”
These clerestory windows, which tuck under the eaves of the home, are a feature of mid-century modern design, but their origins go back to premodern societies in Egypt and Crete, copied down through the ages in Rome and in churches and cathedrals in Europe. They flood the home with light, and on the side facing the old orchard they are met with banks of window walls and doors that open onto the balcony that runs the length of the home above the lower-level patio walkout.
“Graham was the one that guided us to what the house became; he had the vision,” said Mrs. McNally. “We were comfortable with it as long as it had warm elements like the wood; we’re not chrome and glass kind of people. We like real things.”
A Douglas-fir clad ceiling seems to float above the whole space, levitating on a cushion of light from the clerestory windows that wrap around on all four sides.Tyler Davies/Tyler Davies
There is steel in the huge open structure for support, but it’s hidden. And the glass mainly serves to keep sightlines uncluttered. And the natural elements are not only real, they are also substantial: swathes of solid oak and walnut flooring – not engineered hardwood – as well as literal tonnes of limestone from a quarry in Owen Sound, Ont., that clads the outside of the home. The walls are also robust: instead of drywall (when it’s not exposed concrete, tile or stone), the finished surfaces are all lime plasterwork, which Mr. McNally said leaves behind a lot less dust during construction.
Like any design with mid-century-modern influences, the outdoors is in conversation with the indoors. For instance, just beyond the kitchen breakfast nook is a large, covered gazebo. The primary suite at the opposite end of the house opens onto its own patio that transitions into a grand staircase that steps down to the pool deck.
A wall of windows connects an expansive recreation room that anchors the lower level to the patio and pool deck, paired with raised planters and landscaping that climbs toward the second level. Inside is a play area that’s behind glass doors, which help keep the kiddos under the watchful eyes of parents. A built-in entertainment centre on one wall integrates with a fireplace to help program the space.
This level also features a full gym, two more bedrooms with their own ensuite bathrooms, and a wine storage room.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the den or hearth room became an informal hub for the McNallys.Tyler Davies/Tyler Davies
Home is where the hearth is
In a house of this scale, there are many places you could choose to settle into, but particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic the McNallys found themselves drawn to the den or hearth room off the kitchen.
“It was just sort of cozy. We had a new grandchild arriving – actually we had three arrive during COVID – and so I would knit,” said Mrs. McNally. Close to the kitchen with access to the outside, the laundry room/utility room and the garage, it was an informal hub for her and her husband.
And it has produced several yards of knitting.
“I try to give each new grandchild like a 40-inch by 40-inch hand-knit blanket,” she said. “The first two grandchildren got double-sided blankets, but I don’t have time for that any more because this one or that one needs a sweater or a hat or something.”
Her own children were gifted hand-knit goods made by her mother-in-law, and she saw how those became treasured items to be passed on to their children. Now she’s added to the pool of knitting, in a tradition Mrs. McNally hopes extends to the next generation: “It’s a labour of love.”
So, too, is hiding an elegantly functional family home inside a modern design masterpiece.