By Susan Semenak
Photography by Negin Milani
One of the first things Christina Clavero thought when she saw the house on Valleyview Drive was that it could have been in Miami or Los Angeles. It’s a sleek and modern two-storey home with a finished basement that features ample windows that let the sunshine pour in, suffusing the whole place with bright, clear light.
Clavero—co-managing director of The Agency Oakville and co-founder of The CB Group along with Carlos Clavero and David Bakowsky—says the ingenious use of oversized EPAL European aluminum windows and patio doors blurs the boundaries between indoors and outdoors, creating spaces that flow in the most organic ways.
The five-bedroom Ancaster home with four full bathrooms and a powder room is just one in a roster of spectacular properties listed for sale with The CB Group, a luxury GTA real estate team operating under the umbrella of international firm The Agency.
In this property, Clavero was dazzled by the attention to detail that the owners of the Valleyview property paid in creating a home devoted to comfort and luxury. The house, built by Agrigento Luxury Homes in 2022 and designed by SMPL Design Studio, is an ode to gracious living. It sits on a large lot in a mature area of Ancaster known for its verdant parks and trails and the nearby Hamilton Golf and Country Club, which hosted the Canadian Open last summer.
“This is a prestigious neighbourhood known for its scenic beauty and a suburban feeling,” she says. “It’s a great neighbourhood for families and professionals—a safe and quiet community.” But Ancaster is also highly accessible—it’s a quick 15-minute drive to downtown Hamilton, while Burlington, Oakville and Niagara are within an hour’s drive.
Convenient as the location is, leaving is the last thing on the mind once inside the house, a modern home with black accents and rich stone, brick and wood textures. Ten-foot ceilings throughout the house lend an air of expansiveness. “Because the ceilings are so high and the windows are so big, everything feels light and airy,” Clavero says.
The house was designed to provide glimpses of sky, lawn and garden as often as possible—through patio doors, transoms and picture windows throughout the house, which look out onto the gardens and a 36-foot saltwater pool with a waterfall feature. Carlos Clavero points to one of his favourites: a large window between the family room fireplace and the home office that perfectly frames a graceful old tree growing just outside.
Off the family room and breakfast nook, a set of patio doors leads to a covered stone terrace equipped with automatic overhead STOBAG retractable louvres that provide shelter from the sun and rain but tuck away to let in light when not in use. Automated screens keep the bugs out on warm summer evenings.
“It’s a great neighbourhood for families and professionals—a safe and quiet community.”
One of the house’s most dramatic architectural features is a floating staircase with open risers and custom glass railing. It runs right through the centre of the house, providing direct passage from the second floor all the way down to the living and leisure spaces tucked into the lower level. The designers used black as a continuing decor thread throughout the house—from the window trim and the tone of the faux-crocodile wallpaper in the office to the decorative brick walls around the house.
But nowhere is black put to more dramatic effect than in the large kitchen, with its heavily veined black Caesarstone island with waterfall countertop and backsplash. The kitchen cabinets are black, too, as is a large floor-to-ceiling wall of doors that conceal Fisher & Paykel and Bosch appliances. It also neatly hides one of the house’s most intriguing features: a secret door to a hidden pantry, where the owners stow “the mess they don’t want to see,” as well as small appliances and a coffee station.
To keep the black from making the space feel dark, it is balanced with white walls, wide-plank white oak floors, and on the entryway floor, oversized white marble-toned porcelain tiles.
Downstairs, the lavish amenities continue. Through the lower-level living areas, there’s a custom cocktail lounge complete with a backlit onyx bar, built-in cabinetry and decorative chandeliers and wall sconces. “It’s a very luxurious area for entertaining,” Clavero says, pointing out the adjacent glass-walled temperature-controlled wine room. “You feel like you are in a lounge of a high-end hotel.” Elsewhere in the lower level is a tiered-seating theatre room with plush reclining chairs for the ultimate cinematic experience, as well as a sleek glass-enclosed gym.
In every corner of the Valleyview home, some new detail awaits to make everyday life a more luxurious affair. Clavero sums it up well when she says: “This is a very well-considered home.”