Sue Molloy has always been drawn to the ocean. 

She grew up an avid sailor in Ireland, and holds a PhD in naval architectural and ocean engineering from Memorial University in St. John’s, N.L.

So it seemed a bit of poetry that in 2011, when planning to move from Toronto to Nova Scotia, her husband, Derek Reilly, found a home off Purcells Cove Road in Halifax on a street called Oceanview Drive.

“When we moved in, we had a little bit of an ocean view because the person who owned it before ... went and chopped down all the trees towards the ocean, asking neighbours if he could, to get the view,” says Molloy. “The people on the street were telling us that when it first was developed in the 1960s, there was a full ocean view from our part of the street, partly because there was a big fire in Purcells Cove.” 

Over the years, the ocean vista the couple loved was disappearing as trees grew up.

Molloy had the idea to regain the view by building atop their sprawling, single-storey, three-bedroom, ranch-style bungalow, which even before the couple’s renovations featured an open concept feel, despite its vintage as a Shaw Brick demonstration home.

“People would always walk in and go, ‘Oh, wow, this looks very different than what you’d expect.’ They thought it was going to be a small house with lots of rooms. But it’s all very open,” she says. “The openness of the living room beforehand really made you feel, if we could go up, this could be really gorgeous.”

A couple of years after they moved in, one of the couple’s two sons had a best friend in elementary school whose father was dropping by to pick him up.

“As he came in to chat, it turned out he was an architect, Mark Atwood,” says Molloy. She explained to him that they wanted to add a fourth bedroom for guests. “We’ve lived all over,” says Molloy. “Everybody we know is away. We always have people visiting.”

She recalls “Markitect,” the couple’s nickname for Atwood, telling them that adding a fourth bedroom doesn’t provide the boost to a home’s value it once might have. 

“He said, ‘If you want to go down that road, you’ve got to make it a wow piece.’ It has to be something that someone comes in and says, ‘Wow, I’ve got to have this house,’” Molloy says. “It was really interesting. When you’re doing this stuff, you don’t think about selling. You’re doing it for you. But it’s a smart piece of advice.”

When she did share her ideas about adding a loft above, Atwood told her, “That would probably qualify as wow.”

The couple decided to go ahead a few years ago. Measurements were taken and ideas drawn up.

The initial plan was for their kids to get less cramped bedrooms upstairs above the couple’s bedroom with a loft space and walkway where you could sit and read and look at the ocean.

Atwood convinced them to build atop the kitchen as well, both for the aesthetic appeal from the outside and for the added space. The now teenage boys would have a bathroom. Molloy would get an artist studio to paint. Reilly, an associate professor in computer science with Dalhousie University, would move his office from the basement.

The main floor was also reconfigured, with former bedroom space used to add a kitchen pantry, expand the confined breakfast nook into a full dining area for entertaining and a separate laundry-room area.

Atwood says the design challenge was to create a greater sense of visual unity and “one-ness” for the interior.

“The house had a series of small bump-out bay window additions and small nooks added over time, resulting in a patchwork of spaces,” he says. “Structurally, the challenge was to add a new storey onto the house whose exterior walls had a lot of wide openings, due to the additions.”

With the old roof not removed until the second storey and new roof went up, the family was able to stay in their home during 2023’s year-long renovation, a big bonus given the rental market crisis. 

Going green was a key part of the reno, says Molloy, whose start-up company, Glas Ocean, designs and builds electric boats.

Insulation was upgraded, an oil furnace replaced with a heat pump system and the roof designed to ensure a large area of south-facing slope for solar panels.

Growing up, Reilly jokes that the closest thing he had to ocean was when the back of his subdivision in Scarborough, Ont., flooded. But he appreciates his home’s new water view and the light that streams through the second-storey windows. “I was 100 per cent for going up,” says Reilly, who commutes to work via kayak and fold-up bike.

“The light in the space is just absolutely gorgeous,” adds Molloy. “We’re south facing. The view is south, McNabs Island. It’s a small view. It’s not a huge view. But it’s worth it. In the morning, you can stand up there and watch the sunrise.”