How does a house with a view and a West Vancouver postal code for under a million bucks sound? How about a third of an acre for under $250,000, minutes from the beach?
Whales frolicking in front of your deck, walking distance to a helicopter pad and ocean views, and all in sight of UBC.
Welcome to Passage Island, a 32-acre paradise sitting at the entrance to Howe Sound.
Off the Grid:
But while BC Assessment lists your address as West Van, you’re actually part of Metro Vancouver, overseen by Islands Trust which has a whole new set of rules and by-laws. And while you’ll pay property taxes, there won’t be anyone filling your potholes, picking up the trash or delivering the mail. There are no roads, no ferry service and no shops. Water comes from the sky, and it’s BYO electricity.
I first noticed Passage Island this summer while standing on the deck of a BC Ferry heading to Horseshoe Bay. I was fascinated by the number of houses that covered the forested rock and a large house that sat alone on a treeless chunk of rock nearby. It didn’t take long to find out its name, and thanks to John Walbran’s British Columbia Coast Names: Their Origin and History; and the Passage Island website, a little of its history.
Passage Island was named by Captain George Vancouver in 1792 because it lies midway in the passage, Queen Charlotte Channel, between Point Atkinson and Bowen Island. In 1893, a banker paid a dollar an acre for the island, and in the 1960s it sold to developer Phil Matty. Matty divided the island into 61 lots, bought one for himself, built a house and raised his family there. His son Kim still lives on the island, in fact, he owns the lot that’s currently for sale.
Four families live on the island all year-round. Their kids go to school via a 12-minute boat ride to West Van. The other residents come for the summers and weekends.
No Home Delivery:
Andrew Mathisen, grew up in West Vancouver and helped deliver groceries by boat from the Old Bay Market back in the early 1960s. “There were a handful of cabins there then,” he tells me. “I bet there are some snazzy little shacks there now.”
There are no home deliveries these days, but there are 30 houses on Passage Island. The houses were built between 1960 and 2011 and are assessed between $343,000 and $1,103,000. Stephanie Dinh-Walsh is the realtor for the owners of the house asking $888,800. And, while all those eights sound awfully lucky, the two-bedroom house built in 1994 is assessed at a much lower $568,000.
Properties can take several years to sell, just ask Michele De Fehr. De Fehr who represents Kim Matty’s land and has been selling real estate on Passage Island for over a decade. This lot is not waterfront and has been on the market for almost two years.
“If you’re looking for an investment to build your equity and make a high return, this is not the place,” says De Fehr. “It’s a different kind of living, but when our lights go off in the mainland, theirs stay on.”
City Hall:
De Fehr is happy to give tours of the island to prospective buyers. It only takes ten minutes to walk across the Island she says. There are two beaches, and a flat stretch that locals have dubbed “the frisbee area” and where they gather for potluck dinners or a glass of wine. It’s also where they hold a kind of market where they trade or buy and sell items from a structure they call “City Hall.”
“Being off grid it’s a tight community,” says De Fehr. “Because they are on their own, they work together and really help each other out.”
The demographics are changing. De Fehr says when she first started selling properties on the island there were a lot of seniors living there. Some of the properties have since passed down through the families, others sold to outsiders. “It’s a new generation coming in,” she says.
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I remember an article in Western Living (when that wonderful magazine was the work of that incredibly creative couple, Jack and Liz Bryan), probably somewhere around 1972-4, about Passage Island and one house in particular, shaped rather like a sailboat. One of my biggest regrets is discarding all my family’s back issues of the Bryan-era Western Living! Passage Island today sounds just as magical as it did 50 years ago.
I spent the summer of 1990 camping out on my friend Neil Rutherford’s property, with my 3 year old son. Neil and his brother built a shed there for shelter. I remember the seagulls waking us up at 4:00 am shrieking. Totally memorable……..
Is this for sale