The beautiful A-listed heritage house at 3737 Angus Drive in Vancouver has been demolished.Jimmy Jeong/The Globe and Mail
One of the earliest heritage houses in Vancouver’s Shaughnessy neighbourhood has been demolished, the conclusion to a long-running battle between homeowner and the city after the empty house caught fire five years ago.
Rounsefell House at 3737 Angus Dr., a “Heritage-A” listed structure that had been protected within the heritage conservation district of First Shaughnessy, is now a pile of rubble. It had caught on fire after sitting vacant for several years. Owners Miao Fei Pan and his wife, Wen Huan Yang, hadn’t lived in the house, but had plans to renovate the 10,000-square-foot Tudor home, which they purchased in 2012.
The owners prior to Mr. Pan had done extensive restoration to the house while protecting its unique woodwork and craftsmanship. Well-known architects Samuel Maclure and Cecil Fox designed the house in 1910, and it was one of the few remaining original Shaughnessy manors.
But in late October, 2017 a major fire broke out in the upper floor. The fire was deemed suspicious and Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services eventually confirmed
that it had been “maliciously set.” But no charges have ever been laid.
The fire left a large hole in the roof, and about 40 per cent of the house was destroyed. On Nov. 1, 2017, a week after the fire, the city ordered that steps be taken to preserve the property.
The order stated that the owners had to maintain the building to “reasonably prevent further damage caused by weather, infestation, rot or similar decay.”
In an e-mail, the city said the owners and their contractors assured them the work would be completed.
In 2017, a fire broke out on the top floor of the house, damaging the roof extensively. The fire was later deemed suspicious. No charges were filed, however.Patrick Gunn
However, the hole was not covered and the interior remained exposed to the elements for more than a year, to the chagrin of heritage advocates and fans of the house. It had been part of heritage consultant John Atkin’s Shaughnessy walking tours.
The destruction of an important heritage home occurred because it had sat empty for far too long, Mr. Atkin says. He says that if the owner had taken immediate steps to repair the house, it could have been salvaged and restored.
“It was always one of my favourites as to how it had been renovated. It was an extraordinarily thoughtful retention … so watching it go up in flames was really, really sad. And there is something embodied in those original materials that will be lost.
“If immediate efforts had gone into securing the structure and getting it covered and the intent was there to retain, yes, it could have been retained, albeit with a hell of a lot of work. And possibly what we ended up with would be close to a new structure. But if the intent was there to retain it, I think it would have been done.”
After sitting unrepaired for too long, the city took the owners to B.C. Supreme Court in September, 2018 to order repairs, which is when lawyer Ryan Parsons got involved. Mr. Parsons says that the problem for the owners is that the damage from the fire was so extensive.
He says that the owners are out of the country and not available for an interview.
“One of the big problems is that [the fire] largely destroyed the roof and one of the upper floors, which took away the lateral support for the four huge chimneys. It had a lean to them.”
In the summer of 2018, the owner was getting ready to put up scaffolding to shrink-wrap the house when the city started the bylaw prosecution proceeding for non-compliance with the order to have the hole covered in a timely manner, says Mr. Parsons. The city also started a civil proceeding seeking orders for the owners to repair and restore the house. But, he says, when the owners called WorkSafeBC to notify them of the plan, they were told that workers could not go within the “fall radius” of the chimneys.
“We got an expert report from engineer … that said the place couldn’t be repaired; ‘You can’t restore this.’ The owner was keen to do it, because it’s a beautiful house. But the structural damage was extensive.”
“The city got its own engineer that said, ‘well yeah it could be repaired.’ But it was a pretty, I will be respectful, but it was a pretty shaky theory about how you would do this, with a massive machine. I couldn’t figure out how you could get it into the neighbourhood. to reach up over that house.”
Ultimately, he says, the city dropped the bylaw prosecution. The owners came up with a demolition plan that was approved by WorkSafeBC and applied for a demolition permit, agreeing to put a covenant on title that they would build a new house that is a replica of the Rounsefell House, as ordered by the city. The city said that a third-party engineer determined the building was damaged beyond repair. It issued a demolition order and the house was taken down.
The city received a development permit to replicate the house in September, which is currently under review.
The property has an assessed value of $9,508,000, though one estimate at the time of the fire put the value was as high as $14-million.
The situation has been “financially disastrous” for the owners, says Mr. Parsons. “And there was no easy way out. I’m going by vague memory, but to put up the scaffolds and shrink-wraps, it would have been several hundred thousand dollars. And what do you do with it then?”
Heritage consultant John Atkin says that, given the extensive work needed to bring older homes in line with modern building codes, the idea of replacing the home with a “replica” is not that far-fetched. Many “old” Shaughnessy mansions have been largely rebuilt, he says. The city has no control over what is done to the home’s interior, so the owners don’t have to replicate the old-world glory of the Rounsefell House in 1913.
“We talk about heritage conservation standards, but with our current regulatory process, it’s almost impossible to do,” Mr. Atkin says.
Other jurisdictions make allowances for heritage, he says.
“It’s not that anyone here is saying, ‘We hate heritage.’ But that we have boxed ourselves in so that we don’t take a heritage structure and say, ‘This is heritage, and the impact of treating it differently will not ruin our environment.’
“And so I think it comes down to asking: What is heritage and why are we saving things?”