Mike Miller probably never considered the phrase: "You can't have it both ways," when it came to building his dream garage.
Miller was faced with a quandary as he was designing his new dream home in Oak Bay -- there just wasn't any room for him to store his burgeoning collection of cars, including a vintage Porsche 356B roadster, a Ferrari Dino and a Mercedes-Benz 280SL. Even a three-car garage would have looked out of place on the compact urban site.
But Miller wouldn't give up on his dream. When doing some research he discovered that any below-grade structure isn't bound by property set-backs or counted towards the square footage of the house.
So Miller dug down on his property, eventually ending up with a 2,500 square-foot subterranean garage that wouldn't look out of place if it was located under a multi-family dwelling. The parking area can hold eight cars comfortably.
"I had never done anything like it before," said Miller, whose house won a number of awards and is featured in the May issue of Architectural Digest. "But I figured I would jump into the deep end of the pool and learn."
Access to the underground garage is by an elevator. The unit was custom-built because there wasn't anything on the market that could hoist a vehicle 12 feet to the surface. When the elevator is down, the garage is fully hidden. The roof serves as the floor of one stall of a conventional two-car garage attached to the house.
"That garage reminds me of Batman and Robin," Wil Peereboom, the designer of Miller's house, said. "I told him: 'Yeah, you can do it, and it's really cool -- but it's going to cost you a lot of money.'"
Miller concedes the cost of the garage might be higher than usual, but it is a price he was willing to pay for the only multi-car underground garage in his neighbourhood.
parrais@tc.canwest.com
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