The A-frame at 5676 Osprey St. in Sechelt was torn down on Wednesday morning, March 23, to make room for a 160-square-metre rancher.
Maureen Hamblin, who owns the property with her husband Larry, said they have been using the A-frame as a weekend getaway, but now they would like to settle down on the Coast.
“We’re going to replace it with a rancher with a lot of windows on the water side to take advantage of the view,” Hamblin said.
The Hamblins have owned the property since June 2005; it was originally built in the late 1960s. An article in the Sechelt Peninsula Times dated Dec. 31, 1965 shows that the building permit for the A-frame came up for discussion at a Sechelt Village council meeting, where the use of concrete blocks for a foundation was eventually passed.
Initially the Hamblins tried to find an interested party to take the house off their hands – since it’s sitting on blocks, it could literally just be picked up and moved – but logistical problems got in their way.
“We actually offered it – at first for a small sum of money, then for free – for someone to take it away,” Hamblin said. “But because it’s so tall, you would have to take down every single wire that it comes across on the street, and that’s prohibitive for people to move it. That would have been our first choice, so it didn’t go to waste.”
They were able to give away the roof, the windows and a variety of other parts that were nailed down.
In Situ Anthropological Consultants were on hand to monitor any disturbance in the ground because the property is an archaeological site.
Visit us online at www.coastreporter.net to see a video of the house coming down.
