Description of Historic Place

The Belton Residence is a modest one-storey front-gabled Arts and Crafts-style house with an inset corner verandah. It is situated on Second Avenue in Ioco, an early Imperial Oil Company town in Port Moody, British Columbia. The rear of the lot backs onto a wooded creek. The Belton Residence is listed as a heritage site within the Ioco Heritage Conservation Area.

Heritage Value

The Belton Residence 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.

Built in 1923, the Belton Residence is also significant for its modest Arts and Crafts styling and for its association with the Belton family, who occupied the house for years. Arthur Phillip Belton initially worked as a launch operator at the Imperial Oil Company Refinery. He was later promoted to the position of Purchaser. The modest detailing of this house reflects Belton's status within the company, while expressing the traditional aspects of the Arts and Crafts movement and 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. The associated landscape features, such as the mature trees and wooded creek at rear, contribute to the setting of the Belton Residence.

Source: City of Port Moody Planning Department

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Belton Residence include its:
- location, on Second Avenue, on a lot backing onto a creek, 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 rectangular plan with inset corner verandah
- wood-frame construction with cedar shingle siding
- additional exterior details such as an internal red-brick chimney
- variety of windows including four-over-one, six-over-one and eight-over-one double-hung wooden sash casement windows in single and double assembly and triple assembly, now boarded over
- mature informal landscape including deciduous and coniferous trees; wooded creek at rear