Fifty shades of ... green

Oh, to watch the ships from the balcony of this Point Grey home!

Trees and shrubs nearly hide the home's vine-covered facade.

Old-fashioned wall with peekaboo window separates house from public park.

This is one of my favourite houses in Vancouver, perhaps even the favourite. What's not to like about a flower-and-tree-shrouded mansion stretching gracefully lengthwise down to the Point Grey waterfront? Even though it looks venerably old, as a house of this style definitely should, it is in fact quite new. I watched it being built 10 to 15 years ago as I walked past on my daily trips to work. One of the first things done on the site was a massive planting of the flowering perennials, trees and shrubs that now virtually hide a beautiful old-fashioned garden wall. The wall, complete with a peekaboo window, provides privacy and separates the house from a small public park next door. The house itself was built to resemble an old English country mansion, with its many-paned windows, slate-tile roof, brick chimneys and vines growing up the facade. There is even a whimsical weather vane on one of the roof peaks! I loved the fact that the owners, who clearly had the money to lavish on any style of home they wanted, chose a stately mansion straight out of a Jane Austen novel. I'm not the only one who thinks this house is romantic. When I passed it this week, film crews were hauling their equipment out of its doors. Sometimes movie crews are reluctant to talk about what they're working on, but I fell into conversation with one worker who called the house "amazing." So what was the movie being shot there? "Fifty Shades of Grey, Part 2," he said.