Having worked together informally for years, Montréal-based MYTO principals Martine Brisson and Roxanne Miller formally joined forces a year ago to offer a service that is uncommon, at least for small boutique firms: providing interior renovation and landscape design as a coordinated service.
“Our approach at MYTO is to connect the interior with the exterior,” says Brisson, who is the interior design/renovation half of the team. “When you are inside, we want you to have a beautiful view of the outside from wherever you are in the house. We use this same ideology throughout the design, in the colours and materials we use to make the views like a painting of the outside, like a beautiful work of art.”
Designs like a recent renovation to a mid-20th century home in L’Isle de Montréal feature white walls and an open, flowing space that is brightened by large windows and sliding glass doors, the better to view the outside from every vantage point. “It’s very important to us to work with a small palette of materials and colours: white, black, dark wood. I think of a house as like a couture collection; it’s all about cohesiveness.”
For landscape designer Miller, Brisson’s elegantly simple interiors are the perfect complement to exuberantly alive yet orderly garden design. “Because you stay inside your house half of the year, it’s very important to us to create gardens that are low-maintenance and look beautiful twelve months of the year. We want you to look outside, even in the winter, and it is beautiful.”
Inner Courtyard
A private courtyard for a 1920s town house in the Plateau Mont-Royal, whose interior the team had previously renovated, serves as a cozy outdoor space for entertaining. A dramatic Japanese maple serves as the centrepiece, guiding a palette of soft grey-painted brick walls, portable lighting and custom concrete-blend furnishings that acquire a beautiful patina as they weather over time.
Mont-Royal
Formerly a warren of small rooms and dark hallways, this 1940s home was completely gutted and opened up to improve flow and let the sunshine in. Pure white walls, black trim and walnut panels, including a storage unit that stretches the length of the main floor, provide a clean backdrop for abundant light and garden views, often right through the house.
Photography by: Pierre Béland