The W.J. Walker House is a rustic cottage at the eastern end of Deer Lake and is now located within Deer Lake Park. It is a one-and-a-half-storey wood-frame shingle-clad vernacular structure.
The W.J. Walker House is a rustic cottage at the eastern end of Deer Lake and is now located within Deer Lake Park. It is a one-and-a-half-storey wood-frame shingle-clad vernacular structure.
Heritage Value
The W.J. Walker House is important as it references the economic activities in the Deer Lake area prior to the development of grand mansions in Deer Lake Park. It is typical of the cottages built by workers in the market gardening and lumber-milling industries that operated around the lake primarily from 1904-1925. This is the only cottage on the shores of Deer Lake remaining from the era when these industries were the focus of the area's development.
The house demonstrates the aesthetic values of Olive Walker and her husband William J. Walker, a ‘rancher’ (market gardener, poultry farmer) who built the house as a retirement home, in the quality of its construction and interior finishing. The Craftsman styling of the house was a popular design vocabulary of the time and reflected the modern taste and values of the owner. The construction of the house also illustrates the use of locally milled lumber.
The extant cold safe at the side of house is indicative of food storage methods in the early twentieth century and provides insight to the everyday domestic lives of people at this time.
Defining Elements
Key elements that define the heritage character of the W.J. Walker House include its:
- location close to the lake and the site of the Deer Lake Lumber Company where the wood for construction of the house was milled
- Craftsman style characteristics such as the house's orientation (front gable facing the street) and the combination of gable and double-pitched shed roofs
- front entrance with its gabled porch supported by distinctive oversized diagonal brackets, and substantial front door of Douglas fir decorated with hand forged iron plates
- cedar shingle siding
- multiple-assembly wooden-sash casement windows with transoms
- projecting cold safe
- interior finishing that dates to the original construction of the house, such as the diagonally laid tongue-and-groove Douglas fir ceilings, wood panelled walls, and Clayburn brick fireplace
P.I.D. No. 017-105-773
Legal Description: Parcel 'A' (Reference Plan 3703), District Lot 85, Group 1, Except: Firstly: Parcel 'One' (Explanatory Plan 11350) Secondly: Parcel 2 (Reference Plan 35549) Group 1, New Westminster District.
Boundaries
The W.J. Walker House is comprised of a single municipally-owned property located at 5255 Sperling Avenue, Burnaby.
Area
2,005.02
Contributing Resource
Building
Landscape Feature
Ownership
Public (local)
Documentation
Heritage Site Files: PC77000 20. City of Burnaby Planning and Building Department, 4949 Canada Way, Burnaby, B.C., V5G 1M2
Photograph looking over Deer Lake and snow-covered ground towards buildings and houses. To the left is the cottage and house belonging to the Woodward sisters, Harriet and Maude. The cottage, and later the house, were also used as the Burnaby Lake Post Office and a school run by Harriet Woodward. …
Photograph looking over Deer Lake and snow-covered ground towards buildings and houses. To the left is the cottage and house belonging to the Woodward sisters, Harriet and Maude. The cottage, and later the house, were also used as the Burnaby Lake Post Office and a school run by Harriet Woodward. At the time of this photograph, it was in use as the Burnaby Lake United Church. In the middle of the picture, numerous boathouses and a diving tower can be seen at the shoreline of the lake. To the right of the copse of trees, on the hill, is the house and post office belonging to the Woodward sisters and right of that is the home built for William J. Walker in 1907 but owned by D.R. Boucher during the 1920s. To the far right the Pole Line Road (later, Sperling Avenue) is visible along with the home of Francis J. Peers, known as Greyfriars.
49 photographs (35 prints : b&w and col. and 14 negatives : b&w)
Scope and Content
Photographs of "the Bird Doctor" Virginia Knight and her husband Milton and their properties, avaries, and pets. File also includes the couple's travel photographs, photograph's of Milton's antique clock and watch collection, and images of Lakeview Aviaries in Burnaby.
49 photographs (35 prints : b&w and col. and 14 negatives : b&w)
Description Level
File
Record No.
510-001
Access Restriction
No restrictions
Reproduction Restriction
May be restricted by third party rights
Accession Number
BHS1992-53
Scope and Content
Photographs of "the Bird Doctor" Virginia Knight and her husband Milton and their properties, avaries, and pets. File also includes the couple's travel photographs, photograph's of Milton's antique clock and watch collection, and images of Lakeview Aviaries in Burnaby.
Stamp on verso of 510-001 reads: "Woodward's Advertising Photography"
Note on verso of 510-003 reads: "Taken at San Juan Capistrano. The minute you enter the place these pigeons light all over you and they sell you small bags of wheat to feed them." Other notes and date stamp on verso.
Note on verso of 510-010 reads: "Virgie + Sheila Joan (Easton) Mulliner / New Year's Eve / 1970-71"
510-008, 510-009, 510-011, 510-012: Date stamp on verso reads "Jan 12, 1962"
Note on verso of 510-022 reads: "My little Saw-Whet Owl who was one of my patients. Fully recovered and hand tame."
510-024 is five small photographs glued to a black paper album page
Handwritten notes on recto of 510-032, describing the clocks in the photograph.
Subseries consists of newspaper clippings, manuals on health and training of talking birds, correspondence and photographs pertaining to "Bird Doctor" Virginia Knight and her husband Milton, the owners of Lakeview Aviaries in Burnaby.
Subseries consists of newspaper clippings, manuals on health and training of talking birds, correspondence and photographs pertaining to "Bird Doctor" Virginia Knight and her husband Milton, the owners of Lakeview Aviaries in Burnaby.
History
Milton "Milt" Waller Knight was born in Canada circa 1904. His wife Virginia Harrington was born in Duluth, Minnesota circa 1905 and lived most of her life in Canada.
Virginia was the first person in British Columbia to breed budgies when she began in 1932 and by 1939 she and her husband created the first crested budgie in the world. By 1942, Virginia was also housing two-hundred and fifty birds at the home of her mother, Mrs. N.M. Herington, which was located at 1775 West 13th Avenue in Burnaby. Milton and Virginia Knight moved into their own home during the war years but, as they could not get their large aviary moved, they were forced to sell their crested birds. When they started up in their birds again, they obtained some of their crested back. By 1948 they had created two types of crested: those with a miniature cockatiel crest and those with a crest like a crested canary. By 1950 they had created the crested in over twelve colours of budgie, including cobalt and yellow-wing greens.
The Knights lived together at 3718 Sperling Avenue (later renumbered 5255 Sperling Avenue) and opened Lakeview Aviaries on their one acre property at Deer Lake where Virginia specialized in budgies (Budgerigars) and bred the first albino in Canada and the first crested variety in the world. She kept Java rice birds, button quail, red factor canaries, cockatiels, finches, love birds and twelve varieties of budgerigar. She was a member of the British Columbia Budgerigar and Foreign Bird Society. The facilities at Lakeview Aviaries included two heated aviary cages and three outdoor flight cages constructed by Milton.
Lakeview housed the only "hospital" facilities in the city for cage birds, which featured an electrically heated, thermostatically controlled hospital cage. Virginia, known in the community as “the Bird Doctor” nursed many sick birds back to health free of charge for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals or SPCA. The Knights often donated their trained birds to sick and injured children, for Virginia believed, “Budgies do wonders for the kiddies. They make them forget their troubles and of course a happy mental outlook is a definite aid to better physical health.”
The couple’s personal pets included eight different types of parrot, three talking budgies, a dancing bare-eyes cockatoo, three talking cockatiel, and “Hoppy” her pet owl. By 1952, they had a toucan and a macaw as pets. In later years, they added two small dogs.
By 1965, Milton had over 25 years of service as a truck driver at the Vancouver Service Department. He was also an avid collector of antique watches and clocks. He reconditioned the timepieces, systematically restoring them to their original condition. He was a member of the National Association of Clock and Watch Collectors. Milt also treasured old music boxes and restored their large metal discs and rolls to “as new” condition.
Milton Knight died March 7, 1966 at 62 years of age. Virginia Knight lived alone at 5755 Sperling Avenue after her husband’s death and continued her work at the Lakeview Aviary where she “doctored 700-800 [birds] a year free of charge (except medicine) and gave SPCA donations up to $1000 a year.” Virginia Knight passed away November 10, 1987 at 82 years of age.
Photograph looking north along the Pole Line Road (later Sperling Avenue). To the far left is Deer Lake and at the top right is Burnaby Lake. The smoke and debris from land clearing is a result of logging operations being carried out by the Doran Brothers logging company, the Deer Lake Mill Company…
inscribed in pencil, verso, l.l. "Looking down north Poleline Hill (now Sperling) Deer Lake at left. "
Scope and Content
Photograph looking north along the Pole Line Road (later Sperling Avenue). To the far left is Deer Lake and at the top right is Burnaby Lake. The smoke and debris from land clearing is a result of logging operations being carried out by the Doran Brothers logging company, the Deer Lake Mill Company. Above Deer Lake, Douglas Road is visible with Claude Hill's Brookfield property (later 6501 Deer Lake Avenue) on the south side of the road and Bernard Hill's home on the north side (later 4990 Canada Way). Just northeast of Brookfield is the George Every-Clayton farm (amongst the trees) on what would later become the Henry and Grace Ceperley estate grounds known as Fairacres. The house in the centre of the picture is the Walker house (later 5255 Sperling Avenue). Mountains can be seen to the north.