Description of Historic Place

The Runnels Residence is a modest, one-storey side-gabled Arts and Crafts bungalow with a side-gabled roof, shed-roofed front dormer and an inset corner verandah. The house is situated on Third Avenue in Ioco, an early Imperial Oil Company town in Port Moody, British Columbia. It is concealed by a large hedge at the front, and the rear of the lot slopes down towards a creek. The Runnels Residence is listed as a heritage site within the Ioco Heritage Conservation Area.

Heritage Value

The Runnels 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 Runnels Residence is also valued for its modest Arts and Crafts detailing and for its association with its early owners, Maxwell Dickson Runnels, a pumpman at Imperial Oil Company Refinery, and his wife, Florence Sarah. The modest detailing reflects the status of the owners, 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 Runnels Residence include its:
- location, on Third Avenue, 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, side-gabled roof, rectangular plan, inset corner verandah and shed-roofed front dormer
- wood-frame construction with heavy timber verandah post, and original shingle siding covered by a later coat of stucco
- masonry construction as expressed by red brick at the foundation level
- Arts and Crafts details such as triangular eave brackets, and open soffits with exposed rafter tails
- variety of windows including one-over-one double-hung wooden sash windows in double-assembly, and six-over-one double-hung wooden sash windows in single assembly, now boarded over
- mature informal landscape, including deciduous and coniferous trees, large hedge at front, and downward slope towards a creek at rear