Hugo D. Driscoll Blog: September 2016

Thursday, September 29, 2016

The Grey by Westland – Ultra Luxury West Point Grey Pre-Construction Residences

Epitome of Modern Elegance
The Grey is situated at the north end of Dunbar Village on West 16th Avenue, The homes in the neighbourhood are predominantly single-family. With this in mind, homes are designed to appeal to the luxuries and comforts of single-family living. Designed by acclaimed IBI, the four-storey building complements the historic neighbourhood with a composite of natural stone, metal panel, glass and concrete. The Grey is a timeless illustration of contemporary elegance.

Aerial perspective of Westland's The Grey.

The Grey will have a selection of two-bedroom to three-bedroom plus den homes, also included in the plans are penthouse level homes, and ground-level commercial space. Penthouses will have their own private rooftop balconies and many homes will benefit from large outdoor terraces.The Grey is located on the crest of Dunbar, north-facing homes will have amazing views of the water, North Shore mountains and Downtown Vancouver. All large homes will carry the Westland pedigree that can only be offered from an ultra luxury single-family builder.

Pricing for The Grey
Details have not yet been released

Floor Plans for The Grey
All residences will consist of two or more bedrooms, including two 1,087 sq ft 2-bedroom suites, 18 2-bedroom + den homes from 1,132-1,353 sq ft, two 1,400 sq ft 3-bedroom condos, and seven penthouses from 911-3,500 sq ft.

Luxurious interiors at The Grey by Guo Interiors.

Superior Interiors

Two finely-crafted, custom colour palettes by Guo Interiors coordinate with your personal style
9’ ceilings in living and bedroom areas visually expand the scope of each room
Wide-plank engineered hardwood flooring flows throughout the living and bedroom areas
Side-by-side washer and dryer laundry closets
Solid core doors in each room create additional privacy and security
Custom-designed built-in closets allow for plenty of room for organization of your possessions
Automated smart-home technology by Creston controls temperature and lighting through a sleek wall-mount keypad
Additional smart-home technology available through the Westland Design Centre
Tailor your home with our pre-selected options for customization and personalization at the Westland Design Centre

Open-plan kitchen concept for spacious living at The Grey.

Connoisseur Kitchens

Italian-imported, custom-stained oak veneer cabinets designed for the needs of the at-home chef
Oversized kitchens with islands
Renowned, state-of-the-art Gaggeneau appliances:
Multi-language options
- 36” 5-burner gas cooktop with stainless steel high CFM hood fan
- Stand-alone 24” integrated refrigerator column
- Stand-alone 18” integrated freezer column
- Built-in microwave
- Built-in, ultra-quiet speed dishwasher
- 24” handleless, automatic door-opening wall oven
Each home includes the option for a one-of-a kind culinary entertainment centre with an integrated pantry that features:
- Gaggeneau coffee maker
- Gaggeneau refrigerated wine column
- Pull-out storage
- Custom bar with mirrored wall and lit display shelving for your finest cognac
Custom-designed drawer and door organizers keep kitchen essentials in their place
Integrated soft-touch, self-close doors and drawers maintain a visually clean kitchen and minimize noise
Kitchens offer convenient under-cabinet task LED lighting for precision work
Easy-to-maintain solid quartz countertops with full-height quartz backsplash and marble-top island make a statement
European-designed, arched chrome Hans Grohe faucet

Show-Stopper Bathrooms

Italian-imported, wood veneer cabinets hover over exquisite tile floor
Master bathroom features:
- Opulent free-standing tub enclosed within a stunning frameless glass bathing room
- Flush-mount, custom-stained oak, mirrored medicine cabinets with built-in lighting and electrical outlets
- Nu-heat flooring for year-round comfort
- Pristine white countertops are paired with Hans Grohe wall-mount or free-standing faucets and fixtures
- Oversized 5’-wide porcelain marble slab creates a spectacular bathing experience
Powder room features:
- Exceptional oversized, three-sided vessel sink
- Duravit wall-mounted lavatory
- Sparking chrome Hans Grohe faucet

Developer Team for The Grey
Westland, a family company, was established in 2008. Since then, Westland has designed and built over 40 ultra-luxury custom homes in some of Vancouver’s most prestige neighbourhoods – Shaughnessy and Kerrisdale. Completely original, each of these custom homes have been meticulously designed to express the unique personality of the homeowner.

Expected Completion for The Grey
Sales start Fall/Winter 2016. Completion date is yet to be determined.

The post The Grey by Westland – Ultra Luxury West Point Grey Pre-Construction Residences appeared first on Vancouver New Condos.

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Cooties

Evidently an hour's bird counting every morning and a lot of dog walking has a price. For the first time in all my years I was bitten by a tick yesterday. A trip to urgent care today and I now have drugs with so many side effects just reading the literature is like a Stephen King novel.

Plus I have to protect myself from the sun. Dagnabbit. This is me who wears shorts and crocs until November and hates hats. Now I must wear sunscreen and sunglasses and all that nonsense.....

I would revolt, but it's already revolting.

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Build-Outs By The Numbers: A Summer Of New Cafes

Build-Outs of Summer: Five Elephant Coffee In Chengdu, China

The autumnal equinox took place last Thursday, ushering out the last day of summer and with it the 2016 Build-Outs of Summer feature series on Sprudge. This year’s series was our biggest yet, with a total of 43 new cafes featured from four different countries on three continents. Like we did at the end of the 2015 Build-Outs of Summer, we crunched the numbers from this year’s entrants to see if there was anything to glean about current cafe trends.

So what did we find out? Did any grand revelation about coffee in 2016 make itself known when we were peering into our statisti-crystal ball? Yes and no. For the most part, new cafes in 2016 seemed to follow similar trends to those of 2015, though there were some interesting new developments amongst this year’s lot.

Are you ready to be amazed? Or at least slightly amused? Then buckle up, because here comes a report I like to call “43 Cafes of Summer: A Statistical Analysis of the 2016 Build-Outs of Summer Series.”

Geography

Build-Outs Of Summer: Sound & Fog of Seattle, Washington

Last year, the American Heartland was underrepresented in Build-Outs, only claiming seven of the total 32 American cafes discussed. But thankfully, this year’s spread is far more even. Of the 40 American entries, 14 are from the western part of the country and 13 are from the east, leaving a whopping 13 cafes from middle America (thanks in no small part to the four Build-Outs from Colorado). Fly-over country no more.

And like last year, Southern California–the greater L.A. area in particular–is a hub for new coffee shops; five of California’s nation-leading total of seven cafes are from the southern part of the state, with L.A. expanded topping the list yet again. But the City of Angels does not sit alone atop leaderboard. It tied another great coffee city, Seattle, for most Build-Outs with three a piece.

build-outs-by-the-numbers-state-by-state

In a somewhat disappointing turn of events, the number of international entries was halved from last year, going from six to three. And yet again, we had no entries from South or Central America. Sprudge’s coverage in these regions has grown over the last year, so we know really cool things are happening. So vámonos, Central and South America, we expect a better showing next year.

build-outs-by-the-numbers-cafe-type

I For One Welcome Our New Machine Overlords

Build-Outs Of Summer: Little Wolf Coffee of Ipswich, Massachusetts

La Marzocco continues their dominance as the go-to espresso machine manufacturer for the Build-Outs, comprising a staggering 31 of the 43 total machines. And like last year, the Linea is king, laying waste to anyone who dare oppose its reign. Well, not exactly, but the old LM favorite is more popular than ever. Whereas last year, the Linea comprised 10 of the 38 espresso machines, this year it makes up 17 of 43, or nearly 40% of all machines. It over quadrupled the next most popular non-La Marzocco machine, the Synesso Hyrdra MVP (4).

build-outs-by-the-numbers-espresso-machines

Somewhat surprisingly, the La Marzocco GS/3 was the second most popular espresso machine with a total of seven. In fact, there were nine single-group machines in this year’s Build-Outs, going to show that more is not always more.

Much like La Marzocco on the espresso machine side, Mahlkonig is the favorite grinder for Build-Outs. 70% of all grinders discussed were Mahlkonig, and the EK-43 is yet again the favorite with 27 of the German grinder manufacturer’s total 47. But the EK-43 is still not the favorite grinder for espresso and in fact fell to fourth place this year. The Mahlkonig Peak took top honors this year with 11, beating out last year’s champ, the Nuova Simonelli Mythos One, with seven.

build-outs-by-the-numbers-grinder-brands

Batch Brew’s Back, Aright!

Build-Outs Of Summer: Passengers Cafe of Cleveland, Ohio

If there’s anything approximating a trend or a revelation this year, it’s that batch brew is back in a rather big way. It’s not that it ever really left, but it looks like the pour-over wave may be starting to crest. Of the 33 entries to discuss their filter coffee program, 11 mentioned only batch brew (and often detailed their particular setups) as opposed to the 10 cafes that talked only about their pour-over options. And even then, 4 of those 10 only mentioned those options as “pour-over”, a departure from last year where most Build-Outs detailed exactly what methods they were going to be using. Which leads me to my next development…

build-outs-by-the-numbers-batch-brew-vs-pour-over

The Ethos of Coffee

Build-Outs Of Summer: Grounded Coffee Company of Willimantic, Connecticut

The reemergence of batch brew over the more technical and time-consuming pour-over options correlates with what many of the cafes appear to value most: building community. This year’s lot seemed more interested in cultivating relationships than being on the cutting edge of pour-over technology. The cafe appears to be moving away from the coffee science lab (though places like Cirque in Tulsa are certainly still fanning that flame) and toward a communal space. These are by no means mutually exclusive concepts, and certainly many of the entries this year are looking to be both hang out spot and science lab, but the language used in this year’s Build-Outs was more emotional and less technical. “Building relationships,” “transforming community,” and “connection” are the sorts of phrases that kept appearing this year.

So there it is, the 2016 Build-Outs of Summer in review. Do any of the trends jibe with the rest of the specialty coffee world? Is 43 cafes a large enough sample size to truly say one way or the other (I mean, it is one larger than the meaning of life, so that’s gotta be pretty big, right)? Is all the “math” replete with rounding errors? The answer to the first two is, “I dunno,” and the third a resounding, “most definitely.”

Thanks for tuning in to this year’s Build-Outs of Summer. We’ll see you in nine months for our seventh season, which will surely be chockfull of Central and South American cafes. You hear me down there!? Don’t make me look bad.

Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network, and a staff writer. He lives in Dallas, Texas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

The post Build-Outs By The Numbers: A Summer Of New Cafes appeared first on Sprudge.

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Now Popping: LA’s Bar Nine Coffee At Amara Kitchen

bar nine pop up coffee amara kitchen highland park los angeles california cafe sprudge
Walk through LA’s Highland Park nowadays and you’ll see a wave of new coffee shops and restaurants. Most sit on York Boulevard or Figueroa Street, main drags where you’ll find a diverse mix of old and new businesses. But sometimes you want to relax somewhere more off the beaten path. This is where you’ll find organic restaurant Amara Kitchen, tucked away on a quieter, mostly residential street, and inside Amara Kitchen, a temporary new outpost for the cafe/roaster Bar Nine.

bar nine pop up coffee amara kitchen highland park los angeles california cafe sprudge
Bar Nine owner Zayde Naquib met the Amara team as both were starting their businesses early in 2014. Naquib says that Amara Kitchen was one of the first places to serve Bar Nine’s roasts before it even opened as a shop. When Amara completed some renovations this year, creating a more spacious restaurant, Naquib saw an opportunity to join in. He says that along with the expansion, Amara “had been wanting to elevate their coffee service. We realized very organically through conversation we could do a joint pop-up—Amara doing brunch in our cafe and us bringing our coffee service to theirs. It’s a really cool partnership between two like-minded businesses.”

Bar Nine’s Evan Damkoehler at the controls.

A welcoming location for work, meetings, or just for enjoying good coffee and food, Amara Kitchen is more intimate than Bar Nine’s cafe in Culver City, according to Naquib. “It’s got such a great neighborhood-cafe feel, but one that’s elevated and interesting. Our bar in Culver very much feels [like you’re] on the floor of the roasting works, especially as we’ve gotten busier with production.”

Naquib likens the thorough yet tightly fitted bar setup to jidoka—a Japanese concept that translates as “automation with a human touch.”

“I really want to see if we can rethink the role of the barista in the coffee bar,” he says, “have them focus on monitoring production, and focusing our training in the way you’d develop skills as a sommelier, with a little less on the technical side of making coffee.” One interesting way he does this is by removing the need for grinding beans for the Marco Jet batch brew by using what he says are “nitrogen-flushed packets of ground coffee that we dial in at our headquarters in Culver City. If a coffee tastes best four days off roast, that’s the taste we’re preserving with our packets, which we refresh weekly.” Without a batch-brew grinder on the premises, the pop-up has room for both a La Marzocco Linea PB and a La Marzocco Vulcano Swift grinder.

Bar Nine’s cashew-almond latte

The menu here is simple—espresso, drip, and an iced coffee that Naquib mentions is a “hot-over-ice brew.” For a milk alternative, Bar Nine has access to Amara Kitchen’s house-made cashew-almond milk. On my visit, I met with Evan Damkoehler, Bar Nine’s director of education, who made me a delicious latte with Amara’s nut-hybrid milk, praising its texture and solid steaming quality.

“Take our glass jar…please!”

Another alternative—and admirable—move is in the takeaway cups. “The glass takeaway cups are a big hit,” says Damkoehler. The screw-top containers are reusable, attractive, and practical, the kind of thing we’ll see more of as coffee continues to embrace sustainable goods.

bar nine pop up coffee amara kitchen highland park los angeles california cafe sprudge
For now, Naquib says the pop-up will run for six months, with the possibility of it turning into a permanent “satellite location.” It’s a bit of an experiment for Naquib, who hopes to expand the jidoka concept through his wholesale partners. “Imagine tasting the exact same extractions all over Los Angeles in cafes, restaurants, and more,” he says. “I think we can achieve a level of consistency that can currently only be found in the Starbucks and Peet’s of the world, but with some of the best coffees produced seasonally and developed to their optimal potential. If our partners can focus on what makes them special, and we can deliver the coffee quality, I think we can help create some really amazing guest experiences. The pop-up is in many ways the proof of concept of this idea.”

Bar Nine at Amara Kitchen is located at 519 North Avenue 64, Los Angeles. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Tatiana Ernst (@TatianaErnst) is a Sprudge staff writer based in Los Angeles. Read more Tatiana Ernst on Sprudge.

Bar Nine is an advertising partner with Sprudge Media Network.

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Hugo D. Driscoll Blog

Friday, September 30, 2016

Buying A Home With Friends – What To Watch Out For

Coffee Sprudgecast Episode 26: All The Way Back To ’98

La Colombe Just Bought A Draft Latte Farm

The Kirkland by Bogner – A Limited Collection of Distinguished Kerrisdale Residences

The Grey by Westland – Ultra Luxury West Point Grey Pre-Construction Residences

Triomphe by Millennium – 340 Brentwood Park Pre-Construction Luxury Condos

Joe Debuts Limited Edition Top Shelf Line at The New York Coffee Festival

A Rare Bird

Thursday, September 29, 2016

The Grey by Westland – Ultra Luxury West Point Grey Pre-Construction Residences

Cooties

Build-Outs By The Numbers: A Summer Of New Cafes

Geography

Batch Brew’s Back, Aright!

The Ethos of Coffee

Now Popping: LA’s Bar Nine Coffee At Amara Kitchen