Drs. Blythe and Violet Eagles Estate
- Repository
- Burnaby Heritage Planning
- Description
- The Drs. Blythe and Violet Eagles Estate is a one hectare property located within Deer Lake Park in Burnaby. The property encompasses a carefully conceived garden of local, non-conventional, and exotic plantings. Conceived as a series of rockeries and terraces, the garden cascades from the house do…
- Associated Dates
- 1929
- Formal Recognition
- Heritage Designation, Community Heritage Register
- Other Names
- Eagles Estate Heritage Garden
- Street View URL
- Google Maps Street View
- Repository
- Burnaby Heritage Planning
- Other Names
- Eagles Estate Heritage Garden
- Geographic Access
- Sperling Avenue
- Associated Dates
- 1929
- Formal Recognition
- Heritage Designation, Community Heritage Register
- Enactment Type
- Bylaw No. 11592
- Enactment Date
- 15/09/2003
- Description
- The Drs. Blythe and Violet Eagles Estate is a one hectare property located within Deer Lake Park in Burnaby. The property encompasses a carefully conceived garden of local, non-conventional, and exotic plantings. Conceived as a series of rockeries and terraces, the garden cascades from the house down towards the waterfront, divided by paths and strips of plantings.
- Heritage Value
- The Eagles Estate is significant because of its unique character within Burnaby’s Deer Lake Park heritage precinct, and the people who were its creators and residents. The garden is a unique expression of the talents and tastes of both the Eagles and Frank Ebenezer Buck (1875-1970). Buck served as the Assistant Dominion Horticulturist in charge of landscape horticulture and floriculture in Ottawa from 1912. In 1920, he was head of the Horticultural Department and the Campus Landscape Architect at the University of British Columbia. He established the plan for the Eagles garden while Dr. Blythe Alfred Eagles (1902-1990), the long-time Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at UBC, selected many of the plantings. The Eagles themselves designed the house as a romantic cottage inspired by the British Arts and Crafts style. Trained in enzyme chemistry, Dr. Violet Evelyn (Dunbar) Eagles (1899-1994) was an enthusiastic amateur gardener, and was perhaps the driving force behind the maintenance and continued development of the garden.
The Eagles were also well known in Burnaby for their active volunteerism in the local community as well as at UBC. When Simon Fraser University opened in Burnaby as the Greater Vancouver’s second university, the Eagles, in particular Violet, became well-known for entertaining dignitaries and special guests of the university in their lavish garden. Drs. Blythe and Violet Eagles were recognized for their good citizenship and the ongoing use of their garden for charitable Burnaby-based functions and celebrations.
- Defining Elements
- Due to the extensive and varied nature of the garden, the character-defining elements of the Eagles Estate are many and complex. The elements that encompass the character of the site include its:
- British Arts and Crafts-inspired house with original exterior features such as a picturesque roofline, stucco cladding and six- and eight-paned steel-frame casement windows, and original interior features such as the central fireplace, wood floors and kitchen cabinetry
- formal staircase leading to the north (formal entry) side of the house
- carefully planned yet informal garden design, with 'garden rooms' used to create intimacy
- terraced landscape cascading from the house down to the garden
- incorporation of local, exotic, flowering and non-flowering plants.
- contrast of manicured versus freely growing landscape elements
- use of wood lattice fencing gates, arbors and trellis
- Historic Neighbourhood
- Burnaby Lake (Historic Neighbourhood)
- Planning Study Area
- Morley-Buckingham Area
- Community
- Burnaby
- Cadastral Identifier
- P.I.D. No. 007-302-801
Legal Description: Lot 143, District Lot 85, Group 1, New Westminster District, Plan 36335
- Boundaries
- The Eagles Estate is comprised of a single municipally-owned property located at 5655 Sperling Avenue, Burnaby.
- Area
- 6,403.91
- Contributing Resource
- Building
- Landscape Feature
- Documentation
- Heritage Site Files: PC77000 20. City of Burnaby Planning and Building Department, 4949 Canada Way, Burnaby, B.C., V5G 1M2
- Names
- Eagles, Dr. Blythe
- Eagles, Dr. Violet
- Street Address
- 5655 Sperling Avenue
- Street View URL
- Google Maps Street View
Less detail
Dr. William & Ruth Baldwin House
- Repository
- Burnaby Heritage Planning
- Description
- The Dr. William & Ruth Baldwin House is a two-storey modern post-and-beam structure, located on the southern shore of Deer Lake in Burnaby's Deer Lake Park. The site is steeply sloped, and the main entrance of the house is at the top of the slope facing onto Deer Lake Drive.
- Associated Dates
- 1965
- Formal Recognition
- Community Heritage Register
- Repository
- Burnaby Heritage Planning
- Geographic Access
- Deer Lake Drive
- Associated Dates
- 1965
- Formal Recognition
- Community Heritage Register
- Enactment Type
- Council Resolution
- Enactment Date
- 26/05/2003
- Description
- The Dr. William & Ruth Baldwin House is a two-storey modern post-and-beam structure, located on the southern shore of Deer Lake in Burnaby's Deer Lake Park. The site is steeply sloped, and the main entrance of the house is at the top of the slope facing onto Deer Lake Drive.
- Heritage Value
- The Baldwin House is valued as a prime example of Burnaby’s post-Second World War modern heritage and progressive architectural style, as well as for its personal connections to internationally-acclaimed architect, Arthur Erickson.
Inspired by the modern domestic idiom established earlier in the twentieth century by Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Neutra, Erickson conceived his architecture as responding directly to the site. A cohesive expression of simple orthogonal lines and ultimate transparency, this structure reduces the idea of post-and-beam West Coast modernism to its most refined elements. A fine example of the evolving talent of Erickson’s earlier work, this house is a landmark modern house in Burnaby and is unique in terms of siting and context.
Having just won the 1963 competition for the new Simon Fraser University in Burnaby with his partner, Geoff Massey, and having built fewer than half a dozen homes previously, Erickson’s reputation was growing and his skill as a designer of modern buildings was in great demand. The same year that Erickson/Massey Architects designed SFU, Dr. William Baldwin and his wife, Ruth, personal friends of Erickson, commissioned him to design this house. Erickson was already familiar with the site; as a child he had spent time at this spot when his family visited friends who lived on Deer Lake. Both the Baldwin House and the university were completed in 1965. SFU became internationally famous; the Baldwin House was also considered an architectural success and was recognized in publications of the time.
Only a single storey of this two-storey house is visible from the road, as it is built into the hillside in response to its steep site and proximity to Deer Lake. Like many other Erickson designs, this structure was conceived as a pavilion. Constructed of glass and wood, its transparency facilitates visual access to the lake’s edge, acting as an invitation, rather than a barrier, to the landscape. The house blends into the natural surroundings and the site includes other man-made landscape features such as a reflecting pool. As a reaction to the often grey quality of light in the region, Erickson exploits flat planes of water as a source of borrowed light.
The refined and purposeful design, transparency, openness of plan and adjacency to the lake combine to give the house a floating appearance at the water's edge. The concept of a floating house set within an accompanying garden was inspired, in part, by the palaces and house boats of Dal Lake in Kashmir and the famed nearby Mughal Gardens. Although Erickson never visited Dal Lake, he travelled extensively throughout India, and specifically mentions the Kashmir reference in relation to this house. There is a rich complexity of other allusions worked into the fabric of the house, unified by a feeling for the conjunction of light, water and land at this special location.
Widely renowned as Canada’s most brilliant modern architect, Erickson’s reputation is important to the development and growth of modern architecture in Canada and North America.
- Defining Elements
- The elements of the Baldwin House that define its character are those materials and details which respond to the location of the building and determine the relation between landscape and building, combining to create a single cohesive site. These include its:
- close proximity to water
- orthogonal plan and massing, with flat tar-and-gravel roof
- stepped down massing orienting the house towards the water
- post-and-beam construction, with the width of the beams matched to the width of the posts
- wood and glass used as primary building materials
- transparency and light achieved by the abundant use of glass
- large undivided sheets of single glazing
- butt glazed glass corners
- abundant and generous balconies, which blur the transition from interior to exterior
- horizontal flush cedar siding
- use of salvaged brick for chimneys
- use of chains as downspouts
- built-in rooftop barbeque
- built in furniture and fittings dating to the time of construction, such as original hardware, benches, bathroom vanities and kitchen cabinets
- landscaped site including reflecting pool, plantings and a dock protruding into the lake
- Locality
- Deer Lake Park
- Historic Neighbourhood
- Burnaby Lake (Historic Neighbourhood)
- Planning Study Area
- Morley-Buckingham Area
- Function
- Primary Current--Single Dwelling
- Primary Historic--Single Dwelling
- Community
- Burnaby
- Cadastral Identifier
- P.I.D. No. 011-946-032 and P.I.D. No. 011-946-067
- Boundaries
- The Baldwin House is comprised of two municipally-owned lots located at 6543 and 6545 Deer Lake Drive, Burnaby.
- Area
- 6,070.20
- Contributing Resource
- Building
- Landscape Feature
- Ownership
- Public (local)
- Other Collection
- Canadian Architectural Archives, University of Calgary, Collection: Original Plans No. ERI 4A/76.13
- Documentation
- Heritage Site Files: PC77000 20. City of Burnaby Planning and Building Department, 4949 Canada Way, Burnaby, B.C., V5G 1M2
- Street Address
- 6543 Deer Lake Drive
Less detail
Burnaby's heritage : an inventory of buildings and structures
Deer Lake Park pottery studio
- Repository
- City of Burnaby Archives
- Date
- [2004]
- Collection/Fonds
- Burnaby NewsLeader photograph collection
- Physical Description
- 1 photograph (tiff) : col.
- Description Level
- Item
- Record No.
- 535-1765
- Access Restriction
- No restrictions
- Reproduction Restriction
- No restrictions
- Accession Number
- 2018-12
- Scope and Content
- Photograph of Rob Dainow working on a clay pot in the pottery studio at Deer Lake Park.
- Subjects
- Crafts
- Arts
- Media Type
- Photograph
- Photographer
- Bartel, Mario
- Notes
- Title based on caption
- Collected by editorial for use in a January 2004 issue of the Burnaby NewsLeader
- Caption from metadata: "Rob Dainow works on a clay pot at the pottery studio at Burnaby's Deer Lake Park. He says he started working with clay 40 years ago, but he's just getting back to it after a 20 year absence. The studio is open for drop-in workshops every Monday, Wednesday and Sunday."
- Geographic Access
- Deer Lake Park
- Historic Neighbourhood
- Burnaby Lake (Historic Neighbourhood)
- Planning Study Area
- Morley-Buckingham Area
Less detail
Fall leaves in Deer Lake Park
![Deer Lake Park pottery studio, [2004] thumbnail](/media/hpo/_Data/_Archives_Images/_Unrestricted/535/535-1765.jpg?width=280)
![Deer Lake Park pottery studio, [2004] thumbnail](/media/hpo/_Data/_Archives_Images/_Unrestricted/535/535-1765.jpg)
![Fall leaves in Deer Lake Park, [2002] thumbnail](/media/hpo/_Data/_Archives_Images/_Unrestricted/535/535-2814.jpg?width=280)
![Fall leaves in Deer Lake Park, [2002] thumbnail](/media/hpo/_Data/_Archives_Images/_Unrestricted/535/535-2814.jpg)