Description of Historic Place

852 Cumberland Crescent is a two-storey Craftsman style house, notable for its front-gabled roof and wraparound verandah. It is one of six equally spaced single-family homes that were built at the same time along Cumberland Crescent, at the crest of a steep hill with panoramic views to the south. Infill houses of a similar scale were later built between each of the original houses. There are several mature cedars on the lot with a mature hedge and a bed of shrubs at the front property line, defining the transition from public to private space. The lot extends the full length from Cumberland Crescent to West 19th Street.

Heritage Value

852 Cumberland Crescent is significant as evidence of early suburban development during the Boom Years in North Vancouver, prior to the outbreak of the First World War. It was built as part of a row of six speculative houses that demonstrate the continued population growth on the North Shore. These houses were designed in 1911 by architect Herbert Mayer Barker for the McAlpine Robertson Construction Company, a Vancouver-based company that worked across the province on projects that included the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory (1915-1918) in Saanich. Scottish-born and trained, Barker (1877-1942) commenced his practice in Vancouver in 1910, but returned to Scotland during the First World War. During his time here, Barker was a resident of the North Shore and lived briefly in one of these houses after they were completed. Five of these houses retain a high degree of integrity and together they represent the typical appearance of a low-density residential street of the Edwardian era. There is an overall unified appearance provided by the common architectural vocabulary, but subtle differences in the individual designs of the houses provide a rich and varied streetscape.

This house is valued as a very good example of the influence of the Craftsman style, the most popular housing style in the Lower Mainland in the early twentieth century. The Craftsman style was typified by rational space planning, the use of natural materials and a mix of traditional design elements inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement, such as picturesque rooflines, decorative brackets and a rich textural contrast of siding and shingles.

Source: Heritage Planning Files, City of North Vancouver

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of 852 Cumberland Crescent include its:
- spatial relationship to the other houses in the original development scheme
- location at the crest of a steep hill, with views to the south across Burrard Inlet
- residential form, scale and massing as expressed by its two-storey plus full basement height and regular, rectangular plan
- wood-frame construction
- front-gabled roof with shed roof over verandah
- Craftsman style details such as: cedar shingle siding with bellcast flare; decorative shingle pattern; board-and-batten siding at the foundation level; triangular eave brackets; open eaves with exposed rafter tails; and original panelled front door with single half-length sidelight
- additional exterior details such as: wraparound verandah with twinned square columns and square balusters; belt courses between first and second storey and above second storey windows; internal red brick chimney; and rear French doors with three-paned transom
- regular and symmetrical fenestration with multiple-assembly multi-paned wooden-sash casement windows
- associated landscape elements, such as the mature cedars on the property and shrub massing at the front