Steven Soderbergh’s 1989 movie Sex, Lies, and Videotape opens with Andie MacDowell’s character sitting on her therapist’s couch, sharing her worries about the amount of garbage in the world. “I remember watching that thinking, ‘That’s me — I relate to that,’” says Evonne Levy, a professor of art history specializing in baroque art at the University of Toronto. Sure enough, sustainability is a core component of Levy’s mass-timber Algonquin Highlands retreat, currently pending Passive House certification following its second successful blower door test this past fall.
Designed by architects Richard Unterthiner and Geoffrey Turnbull, the all-season residence swaps a furnace or
