Unrenovated house retains most of its original character from nearly a century ago
John Mackie
Sun
A turret and a brick-and-stone facade are the hallmarks of a handsome Queen Anne-style heritage home at 356 West 11th in Vancouver. It cost $6,000 to build in 1910, and is now for sale for $1.94 million. It is one of only 263 Heritage A buildings in Vancouver, the city’s highest ranking. Photograph by: Ward Perrin, Vancouver Sun
The windows in the home’s turret provide a panoramic view to the north. Photograph by: Ward Perrin, Vancouver Sun
Houses tend to change over the years. New owners come in and put their personal stamp on the property by upgrading this or renovating that. Sometimes it improves the place, but often, “modernizing” something wrecks it, taking away the original character.
In any event, there are precious few houses in Vancouver that are in original, unrenovated condition. One of them has gone up for sale at 356 West 11th, for $1.94 million.
This may seem a bit steep in today’s uncertain economic climate, particularly since the 3,700-square-foot home needs a new roof, kitchen and bathroom.
But man, what a house.
Many Vancouverites will recognize it because it’s just east of city hall at 11th and Yukon. It sits high up on a hill, which gives it a real prominence and grandeur. Unlike other old homes in the neighbourhood, the house has never been broken up into suites; it still retains its original layout.
It dates to 1910, and is in the Queen Anne style, with a big turret on the northwest corner. The exterior is a handsome blend of brick and stone, with an enormous front porch. There may not be another building like it in the city. It’s more like a Westmount mansion in Montreal than something you’d see in Shaughnessy.
It’s so striking, it’s one of only 263 Heritage A buildings in Vancouver, the city’s highest ranking.
The inside is definitely in need of some work, but has heritage character galore. There is wood panelling in the hallway, den, dining room and stairwell, plate rail in the dining room, and picture rail in most every room.
Most of the wood has never been painted, and has that lovely patina you get on century-old fir with a dark stain. This includes a stunning 6-foot-tall, 6-foot-wide built-in cabinet in the dining room.
The first and second floors have 10-foot ceilings, and the downstairs ceilings are coffered, with all the original moulding. The pocket doors still have their original keys, and the keys actually work.
Naturally there is a lot of stained glass, including a butterscotch arched window in the dining room and a green, amber and milky blue art-nouveau-style window in the upstairs landing.
One of the house’s many quirks is that there are small stained-glass windows in two of the upstairs bedroom closets. Oddly, there isn’t any stained glass in the actual bedrooms.
How many bedrooms the house has is hard to determine. Depending on how you look at it, there could be three, four, or seven.
How so? When it was built, there were probably three bedrooms on the second floor, including a luxurious master suite across the front of the house. The master would have included a bedroom beneath the turret, which is connected to a small room that was used as a walk-in closet, which in turn is connected to a sitting room with a gorgeous tiled fireplace.
In recent years, the sitting room has been used as a bedroom, hence there could be four bedrooms on the second floor. But there’s also a third floor that would have been the servants’ quarters. It has three rooms that could be used as bedrooms, so in a pinch the house could have seven bedrooms. Or more, if you developed the basement.
The view from the third floor is stunning, particularly from inside the turret, where you get a jaw-dropping panorama of the North Shore mountains and downtown. Alas, the western view of False Creek and English Bay was cut off when they built an addition to Vancouver‘s city hall.
The house was there 25 years before city hall. Rogers Park used to be located where city hall is today, so it would have bordered on a lush expanse of greenery.
It was designed by Milton D. Campbell and Francis E. Burnett, who built several other grand homes in Mount Pleasant just before the First World War. The original owner was Murdock McLean, who is listed in old city directories as a “bookkeeper” and a “landing waiter” at customs.
Not much is known about McLean, but his death in 1917 did rate a mention in the Province newspaper, which said he was a Vancouver pioneer. The Province story says he came to Vancouver in 1886, the year the city was founded, but he doesn’t show up in a city directory until 1893, which is a more likely date.
McLean prospered enough to spend $6,000 constructing his dream home in 1910, but he lived in the house for only seven years before he died at the age of 72. The McLean family remained the owners until Murdock’s son Frederick died in 1944, when it was sold to William Bodnar.
Bodnar’s claim to fame is that he co-owned the Hotel Europe for a few years in the early 1950s. The current owner, Donald Walters, said Bodnar was forced to sell the Europe and three other hotels because one of his partners was embezzling money. The partner was caught and hanged himself in jail.
The Bodnar family still has a connection to the house today. William handed it to his son Henry, who died and left it to his wife Kaye, who died and left it to her second husband, Walters. Walters has had health problems and decided to sell the house because he can’t afford the upkeep.
Hence, the reason the house is more or less like it was in 1910 is that basically, it has been owned by only two families. So you still have the original bench in the hallway, you still have the original chandeliers in the den and dining room, and you still have 1930s wallpaper and ancient push-button light switches.
Quirks? It has a nifty little doo-dad in one of the upstairs bedrooms that controls all the lights in the house; flip it and you can turn out the front hall. It still has the 1910 built-in central vacuum system, although it’s no longer functioning. The garage out back used to be a barn for McLean‘s horse and buggy.
The house is so unusual, it’s been used in several films and TV shows, such as the remake of the horror flick Willard, as well as TV shows The X-Files, Six Feet Under and Just Cause.
It makes sense that the movie business would like the house. It’s so 1910, it almost seems like a Hollywood movie set.
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