A 90-year-old West Vancouver waterfront cottage and its 50-yearold garden are gone following the district's decision to level the property.
Godfrey Lynum, 83, called the cottage home for more than 60 years after buying it from his father in 1946. He paid approximately $30,000. Lynum sold the cottage to the district in 2008 for $3.5 million.
"I'm very disappointed in what they did because I've been lobbying to try to save the house and the secret garden for between five and 10 years," Lynum said.
West Vancouver has acquired 29 of 32 waterfront parcels since 1975 in an attempt to usher modest development to the beachside.
"To preserve the house probably wouldn't have been the best use for it in the context of activating Ambleside," said district communications director Jeff McDonald.
Lynum met frequently with the district's parks department, including senior manager Andrew Banks, about plans for the property.
There were no assurances the cottage would be saved, but Lynum said he hoped someone would devise an imaginative solution.
Featuring Philippine mahogany and a woodburning fireplace built by a stonemason, Lynum said the cottage could have become a teahouse or a clubhouse for boaters. He'd even offered to put up $30,000 for repairs.
"It was like a very good friend of mine," he said.
As a former forester, Lynum said the destruction of the garden was "terribly ironic."
"I didn't spend a lot of time planting and nurturing the trees to have some damned idiots from the parks branch. .. slaughter them," Lynum said.
The lot had been verdant with sequoia, Cornelian cherry, willow trees, hawthorns and fig trees, Lynum said.
Some of them were upwards of 30 years old, including a few that were gifts from Lynum's parents.
"They were well worth saving. Trees are worth a lot of money the older and the bigger they get."
The district does not remove trees lightly, but it would not be in the community's interest to landscape a park around overgrown trees that had occupied the lot, according to McDonald. "They were in very poor condition," he said. "They had not been maintained very well."
The district arborist described the garden as "a forested condition where the trees, due to lack of maintenance, were all competing with each other," according to McDonald.
Dan Jepsen, a former student of Lynum's timber harvesting course at BCIT , referred to the lot in its current state as a "wasteland."
"The old timers in West Van refer to his property as the secret garden," he said. "There's no rebuilding it."
Jepsen is hoping to meet with Mayor Michael Smith to discuss West Vancouver's handling of the situation.
The garden had been a sanctuary for several neighbours, Lynum said.
Lynum has not seen the lot since it was leveled.
"I've never been back to the area and I don't intend going back," he said.
Lynum said he decided to discuss the possibility of saving the cottage and grounds with the municipality in his own way when he decided to sell. "And if I lost the battle, the municipality would lose a lot, too, because I had left them some money in my will," he said.
Attending continual meetings and dealing with a department in any municipality can be vexing, according to Lynum.
He's disappointed in the end result. "You just kind of saw the baby in half, the Canadian compromise, and usually get a solution that doesn't suit anybody very well."
The district is considering allowing a 3,000-squarefoot restaurant and garage art studios below Bellevue Avenue between 13th and 18th streets.
