We had been looking for a country property for a few years where we could have our production roasting facility and our family home. A little over a year ago, we purchased the Kintail Presbyterian Church, a historical building that was built in 1906 and served as a hub of the community for over 100 years.
Since purchasing the building, we’ve undertaken a series of renovations, all with the desire to preserve and honour the natural building techniques used in a historical building. We are dedicated to supporting sustainability in each and every aspect of our businesses and we wanted to extend this philosophy to our home and headquarters as well.
Each design and construction decision we made was aligned with our goal of honouring the church with natural building materials. The amount of research and work that went into our renovation could easily extend over a series of blog posts, but we wanted to highlight some of them here to give our followers a sneak peak. We don’t know when we will be able to have people into the building because of Covid, but we want to share the exciting renovations that are taking place!
Part of our dream is to use the sanctuary as an event space and share our love of premium coffee, artisanal roasting and ethical and sustainable coffee production. We are hoping once the pandemic is over, we will be able to offer events, classes and experiences with our followers. Until then, we can share with you digitally – so here’s a short overview of our journey.
Honouring the History
We really wanted to feature the unique characteristics of the heritage structure that has had a special place in the lives of community members for over a century. We chose to keep the original woodwork details, the maple floors and of course the beautiful stained glass windows. We were also able to keep the original lighting throughout the building.
In the sanctuary space, we installed a butlers pantry at the back and kept the main level open so that the space can double as usable living space for our family and yet can transform when we host events at the roastery in the future.
Natural Materials
We chose to use natural lime plaster, to honour our convictions of using sustainable products. The building was originally built using natural lime plaster and we chose to update the walls, sanctuary and basement with this beautiful material. We worked with Kieran Reid, a Scottish plasterer and owner of Lime Thistle Plastering. We are so pleased with the results and how it turned out, Kieran did an incredible job. The natural material brings a calmness and grounded-ness to the space and highlights the beauty and architecture of the sanctuary.
We also selected to insulate the church with natural materials. After a lot of research, we went with hemp. We worked with an incredible team in Quebec and our property is one of the first to use this product in Ontario. Super thick, tightly woven hemp batts insulate the space and we know that we will be warm this winter and for many more to come.
Love and Investment
Our dwelling deserves to have love and investment put into it. It has a prominence in the community and was open to the public for over 100 years. It’s an honour to have it as our family home and as the Coastal Coffee Headquarters.
We love the possibilities that are created by working with the history of building. It has been very exciting to find a building that would work and we have enjoyed each step of the renovation process. As things continue to evolve, we know that we can build our business and bring our customers amazing coffees from around the world to Ontario’s West Coast.
New Video “The Coastal Roastery”
Two-time Canadian Screen Award nominated cinematographer Matthew Braun has created a video that highlights the roastery renovations.
It’s a way to safely show our customers the inside of the Coastal Coffee headquarters, despite being the middle of a pandemic.
See the new video on our About Page here.
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