Description of Historic Place

The Williamson Residence is a two-storey Foursquare residence, with a small Victorian cottage attached at the rear. It is part of a small grouping of Edwardian-era residences on the outskirts of Ladner village.

Heritage Value

The Williamson Residence is significant for its association with John A. Williamson (1864-1929), who served as reeve from 1920 to 1922. For most of the years he resided in Delta, Williamson was manager of the oilery on Williamson Island, an operation that rendered the by-products of the fish canning process into other useful products, such as fertilizer. Williamson and his wife, Mary, purchased the property in 1907. The original small Victorian cottage at the rear of the house is the earliest portion of the house, built circa 1892 by Alfred DeRupe Taylor (1864-1934), the local veterinarian, and his wife, Agnes Taylor (nee Honeyman, 1848-1928). The Williamsons constructed this large Foursquare house as an addition to the cottage in 1909. Mary remained in the house for a few years after John's death in 1929, and then moved to the Williamson farm on River Road.

Additionally, the Williamson Residence represents the optimistic growth and development of the resource-based economy of Delta in the boom period prior to the outbreak of World War One. It is valued as an example of the Foursquare style, exhibiting characteristic elements such as simple cubic massing and a broad, low-pitched hipped roof. The Foursquare style provided a rational way to build that maximized the volume achieved within the building envelope through a logical floor plan with central access. The broad hipped roof covered the rectangular plan with a minimum of framing. The agglomerative growth of the house represents the evolution of frontier houses that expanded as families prospered and grew. The retention of the earlier cottage demonstrates the frugality of the time, when thrift was considered a virtue. The relative value of labour and materials dictated that reusable structures were retained whenever possible.

Source: Corporation of Delta Planning Department

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Williamson Residence include its:
- compatible urban setting, in contiguous setback with other contemporaneous residences
- residential form, scale and massing, as expressed by its typical Foursquare cubic form, two-storey height, compound plan and hipped roof on the front section, with a gable-roofed cottage attached at the rear
- wood-frame construction with the original drop wooden siding and cornerboards
- exterior details, such as the open verandah, with chamfered square columns and scroll-cut brackets on the rear cottage
- original double-hung one-over-one wooden-sash windows