Description of Historic Place

The Potter Residence is a modest one-and-one-half-storey plus basement Arts and Crafts house, located at the north end of Second Avenue in Ioco, an early Imperial Oil Company town in Port Moody, British Columbia. The house is similar in design to others in the townsite and features a low-pitched, side-gabled roof, shingle siding and a shed-roofed dormer. The residence is situated on a well landscaped lot with mature specimen plantings. The Potter Residence is listed as a heritage site within the Ioco Heritage Conservation Area.

Heritage Value

The Potter Residence is valued as a reflection of the early development of the Ioco townsite, a company town developed by Imperial Oil near its refinery on the north shore of Burrard Inlet. The site was selected in 1914 and subdivided in 1921. Forty new workers' houses were designed by prominent local architects Blackadder and Mackay and built by the Dominion Construction Company of Vancouver. Fifteen additional houses, originally situated on the Ioco grounds, were also moved to the townsite, creating an instant community. The houses were situated strategically according to rank, with lower paid workers assigned to the western side of the townsite. The town also included a community hall, two grocery stores, a restaurant, a meat market, churches and a school. The surviving residences represent the birth of Ioco as a community and company town.

Built in 1922, the Potter Residence is also significant for its modest Arts and Crafts detailing and for its association with first owner William Leslie Potter, who worked as a watchman and pumpman with the Imperial Oil Refinery for 16 years, retiring in 1932. The residence displays typical Arts and Crafts features popularized through countless periodicals and plan books, including the simple rectangular plan, overhanging eaves with exposed rafters with simple gable screen design at the gable peaks. The associated landscape features such as mature shrubs and trees contribute to the setting of the Potter Residence.

Source: City of Port Moody Planning Department

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Potter Residence include its:
- location at the north end of Second Avenue on the west side of the street, set back from the road, within the historic company town of Ioco, amongst other houses of similar form and scale, with views of Burrard Inlet
- residential form, scale and massing as expressed by its one-and-one-half-storey plus basement height, side-gabled roof, rectangular plan and shed-roofed front dormer
- wood-frame construction, with cedar shingle siding, bellcast at watertable and at foundation
- Arts and Crafts details such as open soffits with exposed rafters and purlins, gable screens, and projecting square bay at south side of house
- additional features such as an internal red-brick chimney
- variety of windows including multi-paned wooden-sash casement windows and double assembly, double-hung wooden-sash windows, now boarded over
- associated landscape features including mature holly, rhododendron and deciduous and coniferous trees