Heritage homes labour of love

Former family home of Maple Ridge Mayor Ernie Daykin is being restored. The Daykins sold the property decades ago.

image credit: The New/Files

The idea of buying and restoring a heritage home can either evoke romantic feelings of nostalgia or recurring feelings of fear depending, on your point of view.

Welcome to the nebulous but fascinating world of buying a heritage home.

Looking for definite regulations or designations when restoring a heritage home is a bit like trying to sort out the past. It takes a certain dedication and determination and love of the hunt.

So what is a heritage home? Perhaps surprisingly, there are no hard and fast rules about just how old a heritage home must be to earn the title. None.

While the Greater Vancouver Real Estate board suggests any home 60 years and older can be a heritage home, among historians, there are other factors.

Variables such as who built the home, who owned it, and what kind of wood or design they chose are just as vital as its age.

"A house tells a story about when it was originally built," says Lisa Zosiak, Maple Ridge's planning department liaison on the Maple Ridge Community Heritage Commission.

"When people restore or preserve the house, they are revealing that story again."

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Heritage homes labour of love