The home is surrounded by woodland, reflecting ponds and a creek. Deer, herons and bears often visit the property.
(Photography by Ema Peter)
On Groveland Road in West Vancouver sits a three-storey amalgamation of glass, steel and chrome famous for its curved, white steel structure. It’s a masterpiece of late-’70s modernism by one of Canada’s most iconic architects, Arthur Erickson (and, for Liam Neeson fans, it doubled as the glass mansion owned by a drug cartel leader in the 2019 action flick Cold Pursuit.) It’s currently on the market for $10.8 million.
The residence, known as Eppich House II, is named after the couple who commissioned it: Hugo Eppich, a manufacturing tycoon, and his wife, Brigitte, who were looking to build a house for their growing family in 1978. Erickson had already designed Eppich House I, a private residence for Hugo’s twin brother, Helmut. Hugo and Brigitte were captivated by Erickson’s modernist design aesthetic, so they approached him to build them a home of their own.
Erickson regarded Eppich House II as his most complete work because he had total freedom in designing the house, including much of the furniture. The Eppichs only had one requirement: that Erickson place a window in every space. And so the residence is wrapped in floor-to-ceiling windows; even the laundry room has a tall, narrow one. Hugo then used Ebco Industries—his metal fabrication, electroplating and furniture companies—to produce custom-made materials for the house.
Monica Feldman, the Eppichs’ middle child, was 22 when her family moved into the house in 1988; she lived there for the next four years before moving in with her now-husband. “My favourite thing about the house is how Arthur was able to bring the outside in,” she recalls.
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The structure is surrounded by woodland, reflecting ponds and a creek, blending with the floor-to-ceiling glass design. Through the windows of the house, Feldman used to watch ducks, herons, raccoons and the odd bear visit their property. “Mom would scramble for her phone to try to take a photo of a deer standing on our terrace, and Dad once caught a deer walking down the pathway to the front door,” she says.
Liam Neeson was not the only celebrity to spend time in the house—Shirley MacLaine and actor Adam Arkin occasionally visited for lunch with the Eppichs. In 2021, producers working with actress and singer Dove Cameron saw Eppich House II on Instagram and asked if they could use the house as a set for Cameron’s music video “We Belong.” “The crew started filming at 7 a.m. and didn’t leave until 3 a.m. the following day,” Feldman says. The house has also served as a music video set for Sarah McLachlan.
For years, the home was the site of Thanksgiving dinners, pool parties and Easter egg hunts. Feldman and her younger sister Sonia would place eggs all over the property—tucking them underneath blackberry leaves or rocks near a pond—and let their children search for them. “It’s hilarious because they’d never find them. We had them hike through the property to find them,” Feldman says.
Hugo and Brigitte lived in the house until 2018. After they moved out, between 2021 and 2023, the family upgraded the plumbing and landscaping, replaced all the carpets and lighting fixtures, and repainted all the walls with brighter colours, among other efforts to modernize the home.
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“We’ve tried to figure out how we can hold on to it, but it’s not easy,” Feldman says. “It would’ve been nice to have this in the family because my dad built it. We’re letting go of a piece of us, but it’s just part of life,” she says.
