Russell Hollingsworth

The House that Chip Built

by Eve Lazarus on January 7, 2017

The four lots on the right of photo are now 3085 Point Grey Road

It’s the first week of January, 2017 and if you own a house you’ve received your BC Assessment notice. If you’re like us you’re not popping open the champagne quite yet because your house has smashed through the ceiling of the home owner grant and you’re on the hook for a lot more taxes, all without putting out one lick of paint.

Update: January 2023 – Valued at just over $74 million, Chip Wilson’s house is still #1, but it’s assessed at less that the 2017 level of $75.8 million.

You can thank all those houses that have flipped and flapped over the past 12 months and likely sit empty on your street. The irony is, if you decide to sell because you can’t afford the taxes, good luck trying to get your assessment value.

Be sure to thank Christy Clark in the coming election.

3085 Point Grey Road:

But no use feeling sorry for ourselves, let’s feel sorry for Chip. Now I don’t know Chip Wilson personally, but I do wear his pants, and he has once again come in first for the most expensive house in B.C. To achieve this, all he had to do was mow down four single-family homes, send their parts off to the landfill, and build himself a 30,000+ sq.ft. Kitsilano bunker (imagine half a football field).

You have to love a man who lives his manifesto, note “live near the ocean and inhale the pure salt air that flows over the water.” Lululemon

There have been a few changes in order, but the top 10 houses that I wrote about in 2015, are still the top 10 houses in 2017. The most prestigious address is Belmont Avenue which claims half the spots.

James Island:

The house that comes with its own island, private docks and six guest cottages—James Island—has dropped to the third spot, trailing 4707 Belmont by $16 million.

4707 Belmont claims the #2 spot at $69.2 million. It was designed by Russell Hollingsworth and comes in at 25,000 sq.ft. Vancouver Sun photo

Two years ago, 2815 Point Grey had the 10^th spot, this year it’s moved to number five and a 23% increase in value. Can anyone spell b.i.k.e. l.a.n.e?

The Hollies:

The only heritage house on the top 10, and the only one from Shaughnessy to make the list, bumped up a spot to #6 with a $39.2 million price tag. Built in 1912, the Hollies is a rambling Neoclassical Revival, and less than half the size of Chip’s digs. The house also has an indoor pool, tennis courts, a playground and a coach house. At one point the owners paid their property taxes by renting out the mansion as a wedding reception hall.

Now there’s a thought!

Arthur Erickson designed the indoor swimming pool for the Hollies in the '80s — Arthur Erickson designed the indoor swimming pool for the Hollies in the ’80s

If you’re wondering what your neighbour’s house is going for you can check it out here at: https://evaluebc.bcassessment.ca/ You have until the end of January to appeal your assessment.

Tags 1388 The Crescent, 2815 Point Grey Road, 3085 Point Grey Road, 4707 Belmont, Arthur Erickson, Chip Wilson, James Island, Lululemon, Russell Hollingsworth, The Hollies

Boyd House

by Eve Lazarus on July 19, 2012

The story of Ron Thom and Boyd house appears in Sensational Vancouver

Kerry McPhedran is selling the house she bought in 1972. It’s not because she wants to—as a freelance writer, it’s her retirement plan, and because of its tony West Vancouver address, it comes with a hefty $1.9 million price tag—too steep for most of us.

And, that’s a problem for Kerry, because she won’t sell her home to anybody. The house nurtured her when she needed it, she values the part it played in the West Coast architectural movement through its architect Ron Thom, and she loves the aesthetic—one that works with the landscape, rather than imposing itself upon it.

“I want someone who really loves this house and who will be thrilled to be in it,” she says. “If you have lived in one you do feel your life is better having lived in that space.”

I parked on Duchess and climbed the stone stairs to the house, past massive cedars, dogwoods, sword ferns, salal and Oregon grape. You can just see the house from the street—the floor to ceiling glass walls and low roof meld with the surroundings.

Ron Thom

(Photo by Alex Waterhouse-Hayward)

The house was designed by Ron Thom in 1954, and named for its first owners—Joan and Bruce Boyd, artists who studied with Thom at the Vancouver School of Art, along with B.C. Binning, Jack Shadbolt and Gordon Smith.

It was a heady time for art and architecture and the West Coast’s challenging terrain and tight budgets were also the inspiration and career starters for Thom, Fred Hollingsworth and Arthur Erickson.

Because long before he designed the BC Electric Building, Massey College, the Shaw Festival Theatre, and the Toronto Zoo, Thom designed more than 60 houses, mostly on the North Shore. Many of these were bulldozed, including the Lynn Valley house Thom built for himself in 1948.

The houses were dubbed “midnight specials” because Thom and Hollingsworth designed them for $100 each, late at night while moonlighting from their day jobs.

When Kerry interviewed Hollingsworth for a Western Living article in 1990, four years after Thom’s death, he told her that it was an “exciting time.”

“We were doing little wee houses, mostly for people with no money—usually neighbours and art school graduates and staff,” he said.

Kerry is the third owner. Her office is in the same room where the Boyd’s once painted, and where the second owner, a voice coach, kept her piano.

Designed by Ron Thom in 1954 — Kerry McPhedran at Boyd House, 2012. Eve Lazarus photo

The house is small by today’s standards. But the open plan design, tongue-and-groove cedar, massive cinder-block fireplace, and what’s left of the original ox-blood coloured concrete floor, give it a snug, cozy feel.

Kerry has put her own stamp on the house. In 1977 John Keith-King designed a new kitchen and dining room and enlarged the master bedroom. Russell Hollingsworth, Fred’s son, punched in the skylights.

Kerry wants a new owner, not just a buyer who will tear it down, but she’s also realistic. She’s working to have the house included on the Community Heritage Register. And, just to be clear—because this seems to instill fear in buyer’s hearts—being on the Register does not mean designation, it means that a new owner will be eligible for a bunch of incentives, including the potential to build a second house at the bottom of the large lot.

The carpet’s a little tired, the bathroom needs a reno, and the skylights could be updated, but it’s time for someone else to put their stamp on the house and love it as much as Kerry. Maybe even become the house’s custodian for the next 40 years.

Tags 985 Duchess Avenue, Alex Waterhouse-Hayward, B.C. Binning, BC Electric Building, Community Heritage Register, Fred Hollingsworth, Gordon Smith, Jack Shadbolt, Joan and Bruce Boyd, John Keith-King, Kerry McPhedran, Lynn Valley, Ron Thom, Russell Hollingsworth, West Vancouver

Fred Thornton Hollingsworth

by Eve Lazarus on November 7, 2011

Fred Thornton Hollingsworth was born in England in 1917. He pioneered West Coast Architecture on the North Shore and died in 2015 at the age of 98.

While Arthur Erickson, Ned Pratt and Ron Thom have imprinted their West Coast style of architecture all over Vancouver, Fred Thornton Hollingsworth is the architect most responsible for the look of post war North Vancouver. Inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, Hollingsworth met the legend in 1951 and turned down a job offer to work with him, opting instead to develop his own style.

Fred Hollingsworth’s own North Vancouver house is featured in Sensational Vancouver

Fred Hollingsworth in the Trethewey Residence he designed in 1961. Photo courtesy of Selwyn Pullan.

West Coast Architecture:

Lee Atwell grew up in a Hollingsworth house.

Her parents bought the “Watt’s Residence” from the original owners in 1965. It was built for $15,000 in 1951.

Designed by Fred Thornton Hollingsworth — 3635 Sunnycrest Drive, North Vancouver

Lee’s dad died this year, and she and her sister Bev, who both live out of province, put the house on the market – only the third time in the sixty years since it was built.

“It was my Dad’s wish to live in the house until the time he passed at the age of 87—he loved the house so much,” Lee said. “I feel not only was it my parents who influenced our aesthetic tastes and deep connection to the natural world, but also the house itself. The house helped to define who we are today.”

Lee and Bev’s fear was that new owners would want to raze the place and put up something new. So they were immensely relieved when they found buyers who also love the house. Instead of tearing it down, they’ve hired Fred’s son Russell Hollingsworth, to design an addition in keeping with his father’s philosophy.

The Neoteric House:

I’ve written about Hollingsworth before, but Lee’s comments made me want to revisit some of his architecture, because when it comes to post-war architecture, Fred Hollingsworth is a rock star. He invented the Neoteric style where Lee, Bev and their older brother grew up—affordable family housing with a small footprint, open plan and simple post and beam construction. As early as 1946, Hollingsworth was including radiant floor heating, clerestory windows and skylights to let in lots of light and old growth wood paneling.

As Lee will tell you, a Hollingsworth house is part design, part art and part architecture.

Designed by Fred Hollingsworth for Jack and Marion Moon — 2576 Edgemont Boulevard, North Vancouver

Reconnecting with Nature:

The Moon Residence was built for $11,000 in 1950. It came onto the market for $1.38 million this summer. Like Lee’s house, it is set in a private park-like setting and looks like part of nature rather than something imposed upon it. It’s the type of house that the environmentally friendly should aspire to, and fortunately there are still many Hollingsworth houses in existence–I counted 22 in the District of North Vancouver’s inventory of modern architecture.

“I’ve always said a home is an escape from the world; a place to which you escape to reconnect with nature,” Hollingsworth told writer and urban designer Bob Ransford.

“My clients were all individuals. Many people had different interests. I tried to get into their lives. I tried to find out how they used their space.”

In fact, Hollingsworth, who will turn 95 in January, still lives in the house he designed for his family in 1946 at 1205 Ridgewood Drive in Edgemont Village.

While his name stands for West Coast Modernism and small residential homes, Hollingsworth’s architectural range is astounding. He designed the building that houses UBC’s Faculty of Law in 1971, and in 1993, he designed Nat Bosa’s West Vancouver waterfront mansion at 130 South Oxley Street. In 2005, Vancouver Magazine ranked it as the second most expensive property in BC; assessed at $24 million, with a market value of more than $30 million.

Homes of Artists and Architects

Tags 1205 Ridgewood Drive, 130 South Oxley Street, 2576 Edgemont Boulevard, 3635 Sunnycrest Drive, District of North Vancouver, Edgemont Village, Fred Thornton Hollingsworth, Lee Atwell, Moon Residence, Nat Bosa, Neoteric, North Vancouver, Russell Hollingsworth, the Modern Architecture of North Vancouver, UBC Faculty of Law building, Watt's Residence, West Coast Modernism

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