Prince Edward County, Eastern Ontario

The first thing you notice at Beaurepaire is what you can’t hear. Milford Mill Pond is a protected Conservation Area, and no motorboat has permission to cross. A paddle dipping. Ducks, geese and swans drifting past, changing with the season.

1.1 acres, roughly 180 feet of west-facing shoreline, and a house with intention so that every principal room and all three bedrooms face west. You don’t go looking for the water. It finds you at the kitchen sink, at the dinner table, at your desk.

Afternoon light collects in the living room, where the ceiling lifts into a vault and windows open onto the pond, with motorized awnings and blinds. Dining area and kitchen run alongside it. A fireplace for the chillier end of the day. Above it, a loft office on its own level, open over the living room and level with the arched window. Treetops and sky at desk height, and nobody walks through it to get anywhere. The primary bedroom suite is on this floor, with a walk-in and heated-floor ensuite, so the stairs stay optional. A screened porch and covered deck off the main rooms, an attached garage so you never meet February in the driveway, and flower gardens on three sides.

Guests sleep below, two bedrooms with their own ensuites off a separate family room, which is another way of saying you can have company and still have your own space. A studio with double doors faces the water, ready for the canvas and easel, or the pottery workshop you keep promising yourself.

2,728 finished square feet over three levels. Four-season and self-reliant: propane forced air with central air, on-demand hot water, well with treatment, septic, generator-ready.

Walk to the bakery, post office, Mt Tabor Playhouse. Picton in 15 minutes. The sheltered pond runs milder than open shoreline, and winter means skates, skis and plowed paths, not four months indoors.

Every evening the west light crosses the pond and fills the rooms built for it. Nothing on this water is in a hurry, just a calming sanctuary, ready for your personal touch.