Description of Historic Place

Built in 1912, the Harrington Residence is a mid-block two-storey house in the Craftsman style with elevated ground floor and attic, located on Whyte Avenue in Vancouver's Kitsilano Point subdivision, British Columbia. It is located two blocks away from the Kitsilano Beach and one block west of Vanier Park.

Heritage Value

The Harrington Residence is significant for its relationship to the development of the CPR subdivision at Kitsilano Point and for the Craftsman style of the house.

As part of the 1885 Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) Grant, the Kitsilano Point was first considered for the site of a deep-sea port and later a Palatial Hotel for tourist accommodation. Eventually, hoping to profit from the 1910 Real Estate boom the CPR created a subdivision north of Cornwall Street and west of the First Nation Reserve. The Harrington Residence was one of the first houses standing in the new CPR subdivision which remained scarcely populated at the time. Kitsilano Point includes several cultural institutions and public parks. There was a Squamish Nation reserve on the east side of Kitsilano Point from 1870 until 1913 when was sold and its land became the Vanier Park.

The house is valued for its Craftsman style. The house is distinctive for its elaborate gabled front with decorative knee brackets, its full width porch with its oversized columns and wood shingle siding. The house incorporates straight-on front stairs with a wide, low balustrade typical of the style. The Craftsman style was a popular choice for builders in the area and distinguishes Kitsilano from East Side neighbourhoods such as Mount Pleasant and Grandview, where Queen Anne and Edwardian houses were typical. The residence is also associated with its builder Walter J. Harrington who built several Craftsman houses in Kitsilano.

Character-Defining Elements

The key elements that define the character of Harrington Residence include:

- Continuous residential occupancy
- Main floor one floor above grade
- Front gable with a projecting gabled bay and an attached gabled front porch, all supported by decorative knee-brackets
- Front wooden stairs with low wide field stone balustrade with raised mortar joints and curvilinear concrete cap
- Full width porch with oversized square columns with dentils on stone bases, square wooden balustrades, wooden floor tongue-and-groove board ceiling, and semi-circular viewing projection
- Wooden lap siding at ground floor and cedar shingle siding with flared bottom and mitered corners above; a wide flush belt moulding separating the two sidings
- Front door with three lites, stained glass window at internal stair mid-landing, typical double-hung windows with multi-lite upper sash, casement windows with multi-lite transoms and east and west side box windows; wide surround wooden window frames
- Internal brick chimney