Dear Editor:
Re: 114-year-old heritage house to be razed, Burnaby NOW, May 16
If the city of Burnaby isn’t really interested in preserving the few historical houses it has, one can hardly blame the new owners of the Alexander Evans house for wanting to tear it down.
Why is it that in B.C. most people, including politicians, just don’t “get” historical preservation and believe that houses have the same short lifespan as humans? The states of Washington and Oregon – not to mention Eastern Canada, Europe, Asia etc. – have lots of buildings, some linked to a famous person thus truly historical, others just old buildings much loved and respected. The latter aren’t frozen museum pieces but great homes and businesses that have kept the best from the past while welcoming the 21st century.
I had a look at the house of the Seven Gables. There is only one orange tarp on the outside, in a corner that looks quite iffy, with mould on the exterior wall, above the porch roof. Around a back corner it is possible that the thick vegetation growing right up to the top damaged the wall, or not?
However most of the siding looks fine, the wood feeling solid when one pushes on it (I didn’t go in the yard, I walked along the two lanes). Even the wood of the unpainted gate by the porch looks good.
Old wood ages well and gets stronger with age. In the U.S., Europe, Japan etc. it is actually a precious commodity. It is likely that under the wood siding there are strong thick planks nailed horizontally or diagonally on the studs, a common practice until the late ‘60s.
Nowadays new houses use plywood and OSB, both prone to rotting quickly if some water gets in, often due to improperly installed windows.
Much as it bothers me to see such incredible indifference towards a beautiful house that is not really that old (compared to the many houses I have lived in or worked on, some going back to the Middle Ages), I would rather see it torn down, instead of suffering the appalling fate of many big, old houses in Metro Vancouver.
They look great from the outside, but the original interior layout had been totally wrecked, in order to cram as many small bland apartments as possible. They are no longer an historical building, just a soulless shell.
J-L Brussac, Coquitlam
