Having lived on the North Shore for 50 years, much of it spent crisscrossing thousands of kilometres with a North Shore News camera on my shoulder, I still scan our neighbourhoods for those houses with a little extra character.
There are ranchers, cabins and architectural outliers that add a manmade counterpoint to the area’s natural beauty. Whether it’s unusual design, construction or location, the buildings intrigue the armchair architect inside me. I find myself smiling as I wonder how these homes came to be and just what it would be like to live in them.
Some of these homes are afforded a degree of protection by heritage status designations or municipal ownership, but these days the rapid pace of development is transforming the communities we live in at breakneck speed. Some of the homes pictured are in danger of disappearing from our landscape in the not too distant future as property values spike and density increases.
Hopefully some of these quirky, unique properties will be preserved, providing variety, history and a smile to our architectural record.
