Many of the luxury homes in Vancouver’s chi-chi Shaughnessy neighbourhood are architectually extravagant mansions with opulent detailing and a lot of gold – making this striking Modernist house a breath of fresh air. And from the lot’s history, it’s also an object lesson in maximizing the value of high-end real estate.
The eco-friendly home on Wolfe Avenue was listed September 18 for $12,980,000 – Vancouver’s highest-priced new listing of last week. However, it was only the week’s fourth-priciest new listing in the Lower Mainland (three very fancy West Vancouver mansions beat it on price – listed here, here and here).
Built between 2006 and 2008, the five-bed-plus-den, six-bathroom home has 5,766 square feet of living space on three levels, with a large, open-concept main floor. The clean lines of the design are complemented by Modernist touches such as the interior rock walls in the dining room and foyer, and wood cladding on part of the exterior. The home also has a number of sustainability features including a green roof.
Outside, the 18,000-square-foot sloping lot has been beautifully landscaped, and the terraces offer fabulous city and mountain views.
Wolfe Avenue is one of First Shaughnessy’s most desirable streets, and the builders of this home and subsequent owners saw the lot’s value skyrocket. Records show that the same lot with a teardown bungalow sold in 2003 for just $815,000. Following the completion of the new house, it sold in 2009 for $4.5 million, and then again in 2013 for $6,828,880. Five years on, the current owners are now asking a price of nearly twice what they paid for it, at nearly $13 million.
However, the new list price is probably not an unrealistic figure, as BC Assessment valued the property in July 2017 at $10,309,000. And in case you’re wondering, annual property taxes on the home for 2018 are $27,396.28.
Check out more photos of this super-cool house, below.