Uncovering Burnaby: Why is this heritage house partially blocked by another home?

If you’ve ever walked down Victory Street in Burnaby, you may have noticed a green heritage home located directly behind a newer home.

It’s a rather unusual arrangement, but it comes with an interesting story.

The green heritage home that sits at 4737 Victory St. is known as the O.G. Naud House.

Built in 1908 by Onezime and Charlsie Naud, the home was built on the Naud’s strawberry farm, according to a 2010 article in the Burnaby Now.

Onezime came to Burnaby from Portneuf, Quebec.

He had previously worked on railway construction in Alabama where he met his to-be wife Charlsie.

He then made his way to BC, and was known to be a “talented stonemason who worked on the parliament building in Victoria, the Vancouver post office and the New Westminster Bridge,” notes the Now.

According to Heritage Burnaby, it was one of the first homes to be built in the “Alta Vista” neighbourhood in South Burnaby and is a “direct link to settlement of the area.”

The Naud house was located near the BC Electric Railway streetcar line, located at Royal Oak and Highland park, which allowed for easy access to the neighbouring Vancouver and New Westminster.

The home was designed in the Classical Revival style, which was popularized in Eastern Canada, and included a foursquare structure, with a double-height veranda, columns, and scroll-cut bargeboards.

The foundation of the home was built from glacial erratic granite boulders, which are unique to Burnaby, according to the Now.

For years, the house sat looming over the large plot of land on Victory Street, until 2007, when the building risked being demolished, by its then-owner, the Elizabeth Fry Society.

At the time, the home was being used as a group home.

Luckily, the house was saved as city council approved a heritage agreement and added the home to its heritage register.

The new owner of the Naud House agreed to preserve the home, with a second suite and a second home on the property.

The land the home sat on was subdivided, allowing for a 2,910 sq.ft. home to be built in front of the Naud House.

According to reporting from the Burnaby Now, some neighbours in the area didn’t like the idea of another house blocking the view of the historic home.

“What’s the point of preserving a heritage building when you put another building in front of it? You can’t see the damn thing,” resident Thomas Hasek told the Now in a Sept. 20007 interview.

However, council felt it was fair solution.

“In order to facilitate keeping the house, the economics have got to be there. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. In this case, the cake is the Naud House,” said former city councillor Colleen Jordan.