Mackie Lake House scouted for film and graphic novel

Jan 28, 2021 | 6:30 AM

Coldstream’s Mackie Lake House is on the short list for a graphic novel and film based on the novel called The Willows.

Mackie Lake House (photo/Mackie Lake House Foundation)

According to the Mackie Lake House Foundation, the home has its roots in the Coldstream Ranch which was subdivided in the early 1900’s and planted with apple and pear trees. Rupert Charles Buchanan, a businessman from Montreal, commissioned architect Robert Findlay to build the house in 1910.

Tendered by local firm Bell & Constant and built by local contractor, T.E. Crowell, the house was considered one of the finest private homes in the Okanagan.

The house, located off Kidston Road, was designed in high-style arts and crafts architecture with a unique eastern Canadian influence. The exterior is clad with stucco and board-and-batten siding, with distinctive bellcast roof edges supported on scroll cut brackets. The four tall chimneys and the high chateau roof give the house a commanding presence.

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“The artwork for the novel is based on the exterior of the Mackie House, and the production company is hoping to reach a deal to start filming there in September,” Okanagan Film Commissioner Jon Summerland said.

There is very little information available on the book or script for the movie. It is known the popularity of graphic novels like their close cousin, the comic book, have become increasingly popular and intertwined with the movie industry.

In reaction to this demand, two traditional multinational book publishing corporations started their own graphic novel imprints: HarperCollins launched comics imprint HarperAlley and Penguin RandomHouse introduced Random House Graphic in 2018.

Comics and graphic novel sales topped $1.2 billion in 2019, according to a joint estimate by Comichron’s John Jackson Miller and ICv2’s Milton Griepp. (Two leading aggregators of sales data).

Total comics and graphic novel sales to consumers in the U.S. and Canada were approximately $1.21 billion in 2019, an 11 per cent increase over sales in 2018. The increase was due to continued rapid gains in graphic novel sales in the book channel and single digit growth in sales of periodical comics in comic stores.

by Kevin Rothwell

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