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Spring nesday | june 4 | 2008
Wednesday.March 20.2013 | Powell River Peak » prpeak.com
Home & Garden Historical jigsaw falls into place Henderson House shares its secrets Janet Southcott copyeditor@prpeak.com
Powell River’s first home has received some major doctoring over the past few years. 6211 Walnut Street is now home to Townsite Heritage Society of Powell River, but it started life as home to Dr. Andrew Henderson, Powell River’s first physician. As president of the society for a number of years, Rebecca Vincent has been the perfect person to oversee restoration of the house designated as protected heritage property. “When we took this project on I felt comfortable with it,” she says. “I have certainly done my fair share of renovation work. I felt confident that whatever happened we’d be okay one way or the other.” The house had been empty for six or more years before the society purchased it from Catalyst Paper Corporation for $25,000. “When you purchase a property that has been empty for a while, you know there will be issues--mold, rot, is the building going to stay standing?” There had been no heat in the building and the roof over what used to be Dr. Henderson’s office had been leaking. With years of volunteer hours, and working with contractors who have a passion for the project, a great deal has been accomplished. Landscaping, some plastering and painting is still to be done, but overall the house has taken shape beautifully. Rebecca recalls the very first work party held on a beautiful sunny mid-summer day. “The first thing we had to do was cut back the ivy. It had gone over the front sidewalks and out onto the street. It was so thick and encroached right up to the bottom of the house. We filled a dumpster with it, but left it on the front retaining wall. It will be an annual chore to chop it back or else it will do the same thing. Afterward, we all sat on the front porch and had a beer.” Many volunteers turned out for that first work party, which was a mixed bag of people who were already connected to the society. Since then, whenever a work party is planned an email is sent out and people turn up. Recently, the society completed an audit required by the federal government for a large donation received two years ago. “It is really impressive how many volunteer hours are put in,” she says. “Wendy [Mobley] has
PRESENT AND PAST: Rebecca Vincent [left], president of Townsite Heritage Society of Powell River, volunteer Wendy Mobley, and many other dedicated individuals have been key to the renovations of Dr. Andrew Henderson’s home. The society has tried to keep details of the home as close to historical record as possible, using clues like the inset photograph from Powell River Historical Museum and Archives taken around 1914 as reference. Janet Southcott photo
been one of my linchpins; I don’t know what I would have done without her.” During the summer, Rebecca and Wendy spent many hours on top of the roof painting each individual cedar shake shingle. “It was so hot, you could only go up for two or three hours in the morning,” otherwise the paint would dry before it could be applied. “We got stung by wasps; it was fun.” The society has started a contingency fund so that help can be hired for ongoing maintenance. The roof will probably need to be repainted in five years and the side shingles will also need to be taken care of. With a persistent leak from the torch-on roof over what was Dr. Henderson’s office, workers found that the studs “were like compost. They actually would crumple.” The whole wall had to be torn down and built back up from the floor joists. The house now has a complete basement under half the house and a crawl space under the rest. The front porch was removed and the house was balanced on beams so that soil could be excavated and new footings and concrete foundation poured. It was a difficult job with very tight space in which to work. “Everything we have done here has
been difficult like that,” says Rebecca. “Everything’s a challenge, nothing is just straight forward.” Renovations have been completed to code. For a number of years, the society has been searching for the building’s original floor plan, but other than finding one for Dr. Henderson’s office, which was added after the original house was built, nothing has been found. For contractor Don Skorey and Rebecca, it has been a case of best guesses that have brought the picture of the interior of the house into focus. Just like the delight one gets with finding a missing piece for a jigsaw puzzle, the mystery had to be solved as to where each room or the staircase began and ended. “We were pretty sure that was the place of the main staircase going up,” says Rebecca, pointing to the left side of the front door. “We had no pictures, no real clues except we found a diary entry of somebody who had been at a party. The woman wrote about putting her drink down on the window ledge on the landing of the staircase.” It was enough for work to begin putting the stairs back in. “When we were actually starting to pull things apart, we found the sloped ceiling.”
Next was a guess as to how deep and how many stairs there were before each landing. “When Don was pulling up the plywood you could see the outline of where the posts for the staircase were and we were off by only a couple of inches.” With renovations, the original kitchen became a dining room, an entryway became a larger kitchen, a pantry moved place and a new chimney was used for the cook stove. A second set of stairs had led up beside the second kitchen and with a little detective work, and looking at the line of the original plaster across the chimney side, it is now believed that this was where the maid would have entered the house and gone up to her bedroom. “Stuff like that, for me, is the most exciting part of the whole thing. You have a sense you are actually bringing it back.” Although the society could look at how other Townsite houses had been built, they knew this one was unique. “There were no others built like it because it was built for Dr. Henderson and his family.” Old growth fir was used throughout, for floors, beams, joists, window frames, doors, wainscotting and picture rails. Some of the windows were donated from a house on Poplar Street. They have old ripply »B2