Brick, white stucco and fence posts topped with lions, fruit bowls or balls are hallmarks of the 麻豆传媒映画Special.
But take the third annual self-guided 麻豆传媒映画Special House Tour, Sept. 24, and you'll see how owners and architects have transformed the long "reviled" structures into warm, sleek and modern homes. "The interiors [of one home], it belongs in Dwell magazine," said Rebecca Bishop, program manager for the 麻豆传媒映画Heritage Foundation, which organizes the event.
Two of the homes on the tour are on East Third Avenue, both purchased from the original Italian-Canadian owners. The 1983 special on the street's north side now bears warm cedar touches and architect Stephanie Robb made the 1973 special on the south side magazine-worthy.
More than 10,000 麻豆传媒映画Specials dotted the city in the late 1980s. "So many people would love to see them torn down and that would be pretty catastrophic, environmentally, how much materials would be sent to the landfill," Bishop said. "So we started looking for homes that could potentially really change peoples' minds about these buildings."
For better or worse, the heritage tours have revived interest in 麻豆传媒映画Specials, says Bishop, increasing demand for the streamlined structures that lend themselves to easy modification and secondary suites.
This year's tour spotlights what the foundation has dubbed the Joe Wai Special. When Wai, now 70, worked for Thompson, Berwick, Pratt and Partners architects, he designed 51 Strathcona homes with versatile floorplans, including duplexes, triplexes and detached homes, from 1974 to 1979. In the 1980s, he helped design an area housing cooperative.
The Strathcona Property Owners and Tenants Association formed in 1968 to challenge the city's redevelopment plans for Strathcona where land had been expropriated and blocks of homes levelled to make way for new housing projects. The association stopped the plan and the area attracted rehabilitation money from all three levels of government. Wai was subsequently "drafted" to design infill housing for vacant lots.
He designed pitched-roof homes with kitchens in the middle of the main floor and bathrooms stacked on top, on the second floor.
Jen Eby and her husband bought a Wai home in 2008.
"The sense of history appealed to me, but I won't lie," Eby said. "We were not being altruistic. We were looking for a space that we could put our own mark on." They added an extension and made the ground floor one airy open space. "It took a lot of money and we may never be able to leave this house but our point wasn't to do a reno and flip it, it was to do our house," Eby said. "We have no plans to ever leave."
For tour details, see vancouverheritagefoundation.org.
