"AT HOME WITH HISTORY" ARTICLES

HOUSE GENEALOGISTS DISCOVER THAT HISTORY SELLS
REM
Eve Lazarus

Vancouver developer Robert Brown says that when he first moved to the city from his native Glasgow, Scotland 14 years ago, one of the first things he saw was a 40-year-old building being knocked down, along with some beautiful old trees that shared the land. In its place rose a new and characterless stucco house.

"Coming from a country where they reuse buildings for hundreds of years, this didn't make any sense," says Brown, a principal with Chesterman Property Group Inc., in Vancouver. "I think you can make something way more unique if you are using an existing building, than by just designing on a piece of paper."

Brown has now undertaken home histories on two projects.

One, a 1910 heritage house in the City Hall area of Vancouver, was stripped down and rebuilt into four townhouses. A search into the social history of the building revealed that among its many uses, for about 20 years the Elizabeth Fry Society used it as a half-way house for women prisoners.
Brown was also behind the conversion of Koo's Corner, originally a garage and a landmark on Vancouver's east side since the 1940s, and now recently converted into six townhouses. Brown says he reused the frame and roof of the original building to make the loft-style homes. Each of the new homeowners, he says, will be presented with a written and pictorial history of the home.
Brown says a history of the owners and its uses helps to differentiate the project and sell it faster.

"I definitely think it adds some value along the way," he says.

Home histories are starting to gain the attention of homeowners and they might just be the next twist in genealogy research. While Brown did his own history on the two properties, "house genealogist" or "home history researchers" are popping u and creating a type of social history of a property that traces the lives of past owners, their employment, birth, deaths and marriages.
A historical package not only helps sell a house, but can increase its value. Apparently a house that was a former bordello or a dining room that once displayed dead bodies can really liven up a dinner party conversation.

James Johnstone moved into his 1908 east Vancouver row house two years ago. At one time four of the seven units had been condemned, but Clare McDuff, a local architect from England, saw potential in the Strathcona area properties back in the 1980s, and along with a group of like-minded people, raised enough money to purchase the houses and begin the restoration.

Soon, after moving in, Johnstone became fascinated with the history of the houses and the surrounding neighbourhood. He spent time searching the city archives for names of past owners and found that since early last century, the row houses had been home to waves of Japanese, Jewish, Russian and Chinese immigrants. He found that for about a decade from 1942, the grandmother of Jimi Hendrix lived around the corner.

"I find that the more I do, the more that I'm compelled to go further and deeper. It's a passion that started as a hobby," he says.

Part of the research tools used by Johnstone include census records tax assessment rolls, city directories, the Veteran Affairs database, trips to the cemetery and oral histories of neighbours and past residents.

Johnstone believes he is on the cutting edge of a trend.

"When you movie into an older heritage house, you see scratches on the walls and initials carved in the basement walls or floors and you begin to think about who lived here," he says. "All of a sudden you feel like you are part of a long line of people and you want to find out who was there before you."

Johnstone now works full-time as a home genealogist and has worked for assorted clients, including a television production company, the Vancouver Heritage Foundation and private clients such as Vancouver developer Brad Alberts.

Alberts, president of Inter Urban Land Corp, has recently finished two heritage projects: one a 1908 house and the other a detached building with five row houses dating back to 1891 and built by Arthur Hortin, one of the engineers who build the Hotel Vancouver.

The 1908 building at 637 East Georgia Street, one of the earlier buildings in the Strathcona area, included the Scottish McLennan brothers, three colourful early owners who ran the Cabinet Hotel, a Vancouver hotel and saloon, in Gastown.

According to Johnstone's research, they were dubbed "the Scots Greys," because of their graying hair and the fact that thee were few grey hairs in Vancouver at that time.

Alberts says that having a written history of the building sometimes increases the value of the property and it is a useful marketing tool.

"Anyone who is interested in heritage buildings has a tendency to want to know what the history of the building was, and depending on what actually occurred or who owned it or who built it, it does have some impact on the value or the cachet of the building," says Alberts.

"You might now see that value in terms of dollars, but you certainly see it in terms of interest and maybe sales occur sooner then later, especially in a market that's been depressed or slow."

Alberts notes that a home history also provides a crucial link in convincing the City of Vancouver to retain a heritage building.

"What we try and do is get as much information as possible on the building, both the people who were in there and the builder, and any occurrences that happened in or around it, and tie it together with the city's heritage inventory," he says. "All of this increases the stock value of the building and is a stronger bargaining chip in receiving development bonuses and the like."