Gertrude Lawson House

Gertrude Lawson House stands out. Located at 17th Street and Esquimalt in West Vancouver, British Columbia, it bears more resemblance to a Scottish castle than it does to the houses that surround it. This is no coincidence. Gertrude Lawson built the house in the Scottish manorial style, a style she had observed and fallen in […]

Annapolis Royal Train Station

The Annapolis Royal train station: Gateway to the wilds of the Maritimes By Matt LaForge For ten years the Annapolis Royal train station sat vacant in the centre of town, boarded up, severely flooded, mold infested and utterly neglected. Annapolis Royal is a tiny 400-year-old coastal town in southwestern Nova Scotia that claims the highest […]

Designation Reservations

Is heritage designation worth the trouble? By Johanne Yakula Nothing is more gratifying to old home lovers than a drive through a neighbourhood filled with well-preserved heritage homes. Beautifully restored to their former elegance, these buildings are the result of many dollars spent and hours worked. It is only natural for the owners of these […]

Insurance Assurance

A guide to insuring your heritage home By Marlene Campbell  So, your historic building just received heritage designation and you are now one proud homeowner doing your part to preserve Canada’s built heritage. But just a moment, have you thought about what this means for your insurance policy? It does change things, but don’t panic. […]

Paint from the Past

The Vancouver Heritage Foundation sets an example for finding historic homes’ true colours. By Diane Switzer & Donald Luxton One of the most baffling questions heritage homeowners face is how to choose an appropriate colour scheme for the home’s exterior. There are hundreds of colours available, but until there were recently few places to turn […]

Gustav Stickley: The Wisconsin Farm Boy and His Ethical Chair

What is an ethical chair? What gives a chair its “chairness”? Gustav Stickley pondered such things and led us to modern aesthetics. By Kerry Lange You know Gustav Stickley. You’ve brushed past him many times. He winks through contemporary architecture. He’s the naked grain and natural shapes of Danish furniture; the chrome tubular framed chairs; […]

The Many Faces of Thornhill’s Library

This local landmark stands as a beautiful architectural gem, a reminder of our past, and as a testament to the adaptability of heritage structures. By Adam Birrell The Thornhill Village Library, located at 10 Colborne Street in historic Thornhill, Ontario, does not look like a library. If it weren’t for the small wooden sign at […]

Welcome to Heritage Home website and magazine

Welcome Home. Sometimes you pick the house. More often, it picks you. By Darryl Simmons If you go to a book store you can usually find an arm load of home magazines. In fact, if you go to the Indigo down the road from me you can find six racks of them (I counted). So […]