Description of Historic Place

The Reynolds Residence is a modest one-storey Arts and Crafts bungalow with a front-gabled roof, an inset corner entry porch, triangular eave brackets, and open soffits. The house is situated on Third Avenue in Ioco, an early Imperial Oil Company town in Port Moody, British Columbia. The rear of the lot slopes down to a ravine that runs through the centre of the townsite. The Reynolds Residence is listed as a heritage site within the Ioco Heritage Conservation Area.

Heritage Value

The Reynolds Residence, built in 1922, is valued as a reflection of the early development of the Ioco townsite, a company town developed by Imperial Oil near its refinery on the north shore of Burrard Inlet. The site was selected in 1914 and subdivided in 1921. Forty new workers' houses were designed by prominent local architects Blackadder and Mackay and built by the Dominion Construction Company of Vancouver. Fifteen additional houses, originally situated on the Ioco grounds, were also moved to the townsite, creating an instant community. The houses were situated strategically according to rank, with lower paid workers assigned to the western side of the townsite. The town also included a community hall, two grocery stores, a restaurant, a meat market, churches and a school. The surviving residences represent the birth of Ioco as a community and company town.

The Reynolds Residence is also valued for its modest Arts and Crafts details and for its association with its first owner, William John Reynolds, who worked as a still cleaner at the Imperial Oil Company Refinery. The modest detailing reflects the status of its owner, while expressing the traditional aspects of the Arts and Crafts movement as well as modern domestic lifestyles. The efficient, rational floor plan reflected the reality that most families, especially after the end of the First World War, could no longer afford domestic help.

Source: City of Port Moody Planning Department

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Reynolds Residence include its:
- location, on Third Avenue, with the rear of the lot sloping down to a ravine, within the historic company town of Ioco, amongst other houses of similar form and scale, with views of Burrard Inlet
- residential form, scale and massing as expressed by its one-storey plus basement height, front-gabled roof and inset front corner entry porch
- wood-frame construction, with cedar shingle siding
- Arts and Crafts details such as open soffits with exposed rafter ends, and triangular eave brackets
- additional exterior details such as an internal red-brick chimney with chimney pots
- variety of windows including one-over-one double-hung wooden sash casement windows in single and double-assembly, now boarded over
- mature informal landscape including deciduous and coniferous trees