A traditional gas fireplace in four sizes and a see-through, with a real-scale log fire behind an expanse of glass and a valve that runs when the power is out.
There is a kind of fireplace that has never gone out of fashion because it was never in it: a tall, deep, open box of fire, logs stacked the way a person would stack them, a plain black frame, and stone or brick around it. It is the fireplace in the house people remember, and the one a great many of the households we work with are trying to get back to — in a new house, without the chimney, and without the wood. The Bentley is that fireplace, on gas, and the reason it works is the glass: Marquis calls it “an expansive glass viewing area,” and the whole design is built to put as much of the fire in front of you as the box will hold.
Marquis is the design line of Kingsman, crafted entirely in Canada in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Bentley is what Marquis calls a dedicated clean-view appliance — the face is glass and frame and nothing else, no louvres, no grille — with a pan burner under the logs that Marquis describes, fairly, as a realistic flame pattern: the fire rises through and around the logs rather than in a row in front of them. A safety screen barrier sits over the glass as it must, and a heat-activated blower with variable speed is there for the room that wants the warmth pushed into it. And the Bentley can now be ordered with Marquis’s vented chase — a front or side grill that lets the wall the fireplace lives in breathe — which is what brings the mantel and the television closer to the fire than a traditional fireplace usually allows.
It comes in four sizes and a see-through, and the sizes are honest ones — the number is the fireplace, and the view grows with it. The Bentley 34, above, gives 28½ inches of glass by 25 high, the fireplace for a bedroom, a den or a smaller sitting room, with 19,000 BTU in its mid-efficient form and more in the higher-efficiency version. The 39 opens to 33 by 28½ and the 42 to 37 by 31¾, both at up to about 29,000 BTU — the sizes that suit the ordinary living-room wall, and the ones most of our clients end up with. The Bentley 48, in the first photograph, is the great-room fireplace: 43 inches of glass by 36¾ high, 42,500 BTU, a fire tall enough to be seen from the kitchen. And the Bentley ST is the 42 made see-through, the same 37 by 31¾ inches of fire seen from both rooms it divides.
Marquis makes a point worth repeating: you can “choose from our mid efficient rated fireplace for ambiance and taking the chill out of the room, or higher efficient version for additional warmth.” The same fireplace, in other words, comes tuned two ways, and which one you want depends on whether the room has other heat. We ask that question early.
A traditional fireplace lives or dies by its details, and the Bentley leaves them to you. The door is an arch or a straight black frame. The surround is a hearth mount, a picture frame or a slim-line picture frame. The liner behind the fire is brick — traditional, herringbone, stacked or fluted — or porcelain reflective, which doubles the flame. The logs are split oak, burnt oak on the 48, birch on the 39, 42 and 48, or driftwood, and under them the bed can be ember glass in five colours, ember chunks, decorative stone, natural rock or cannonballs. The photograph below is a 48 in a white room with fluted brick and birch; the one above is a 42 in ledgestone with oak. They are the same fireplace, and it is hard to tell.
The fireplace people remember, without the chimney and without the wood.
The other thing the Bentley has that the memory of a fireplace has is independence. It runs on a millivolt valve with a standing pilot or on an intermittent-pilot system, and either, in Marquis’s words, “allows operation during a power failure with Hi/Low heat and flame adjustment.” When the lines come down in a winter storm, the Bentley is the warm room. The rest is the work of placing it well: the size against the wall, the door and the surround against the stone or the millwork, the vent run, the framing, the mantel and television heights set to the manual for that size. That is what Maxwell Fireplace does in-house — choosing the Bentley with you, planning the vent and the framing, pulling the permits and installing it with our own crew — and the stone, the mantel and the millwork around it are planned together with the trades doing them, yours or ones we bring in, so the fire and the wall are drawn as one thing. Bring us a photograph of the room and we will tell you which Bentley it wants.
Questions people tend to ask
Which size Bentley is right for my room?
The number is the fireplace, and the glass grows with it: the Bentley 34 shows 28½ by 25 inches of fire, the 39 shows 33 by 28½, the 42 shows 37 by 31¾, and the 48 shows 43 by 36¾. As a rule the 34 suits a bedroom or a den, the 39 and 42 the ordinary living room, and the 48 the great room or the wall that is seen from across an open plan. The Bentley ST is the 42 made see-through for the wall between two rooms. We look at the wall and the sightlines before we recommend one.
What is the difference between the mid-efficient and higher-efficiency versions?
Marquis builds the Bentley two ways: a mid-efficient version, in its words, “for ambiance and taking the chill out of the room,” and a higher-efficiency version “for additional warmth.” On the 34, for instance, the mid-efficient fireplace is rated at 19,000 BTU and the higher-efficiency one at more. If the room has other heat and the fireplace is for the evening, the first is often the right choice; if the fireplace is meant to carry the room, the second. We ask early, because it changes the model that gets ordered.
Does it work in a power outage?
Yes. The Bentley runs on either a millivolt valve with a standing pilot or an intermittent-pilot system, and Marquis says both allow operation during a power failure with high-low heat and flame adjustment. The blower will not run without power, but the fire will, which is the thing that matters in a storm.
Can I put a mantel or a television above it?
A mantel, certainly; that is how most Bentleys are finished, as in the photographs on this page. And the Bentley can now be ordered with Marquis’s vented chase, with a front or side grill, which lets the wall above run cooler and brings the mantel and a television closer to the fire. The exact clearances are set by Marquis’s manual for each size and for the chase you choose, and we plan the wall to them before it is framed.
What can the fire itself look like?
Almost anything a wood fire could. The log set is split oak, burnt oak on the 48, birch on the 39, 42 and 48, or driftwood, and the bed under it is ember glass, ember chunks, stone, natural rock or cannonballs. The liner behind is traditional, herringbone, stacked or fluted brick, or porcelain reflective. The door is an arch or a straight black frame, the surround a hearth mount or a picture frame. We help you choose them against the stone or the millwork the fireplace will sit in.
Where is the Bentley made, and where can I see one in Vancouver?
It is crafted in Canada by Kingsman, whose home is Winnipeg, Manitoba. Come to Maxwell Fireplace in North Vancouver and we will walk you through the four sizes and the see-through, the doors, the liners and the log sets, and help you decide between the mid-efficient and higher-efficiency versions for your room. We serve the North Shore, Vancouver and the Sea to Sky corridor.
