Description of Historic Place

The Hutchison Residence is a two-storey wood-frame house located on a residential street comprised of other single-family dwellings of mixed age and style. The house is set unusually close to the street, and has a distinctive gambrel roof.

Heritage Value

The Hutchison Residence demonstrates the initial period of growth and prosperity that occurred in North Vancouver in the years prior to the First World War, and the adjustments necessary as a result of the subsequent financial collapse. The original portion of the house was a modest cottage built in 1909 for Scottish-born Thomas Hutchison (1875-1940), who had arrived in North Vancouver about 1907. Hutchison was a partner in a real estate insurance and loan business, which disappeared as a result of the collapse of the real estate market during the general financial depression of 1913. Hutchison subsequently turned to real estate sales, and modified his residence in 1915 to also act as his office, demonstrating the tough financial realities faced during wartime. After the war, as the economy improved, Hutchison enlarged the house through the addition of the second floor.

Additionally, the Hutchison Residence is unusual for having been enlarged at a time when the Colonial Revival styles had gained renewed popularity, and is a rare local example of a gambrel-roofed house. The roof demonstrates the influence of the Dutch Colonial Revival style, loosely based upon the colonial architecture of the American mid-Atlantic states, and a popular element in pattern book designs during the 1920s.

Source: City of North Vancouver Planning Department

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Hutchison Residence include its:
- residential setting, set closer to street than neighbouring residences
- residential form, scale and massing, as expressed by its two-storey plus basement height, front gambrel roof and rectangular plan, including the early expansion of the main floor and addition of the second floor to the original structure
- wood-frame construction with wooden drop siding on the first storey and shingle siding in the gable ends, extant under vinyl siding
- wooden sash windows such as: leaded, diamond-paned transom lights on the main floor front elevation, and a variety of wooden sash side and rear elevation windows