Events

Heritage Discovery Day

Know a house in Vancouver that would be a great fit for an upcoming tour? Help us find heritage sites to feature on a future tour!

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Heritage Discovery Day offers a chance to take a peek inside a selection of heritage properties to learn about their diverse history, architecture, and design. Running as a fundraiser since 2003, it is a wonderful way to explore Vancouver’s diverse neighbourhoods, discover the stories of each site, past and present, as well as connect with local businesses and community organizations.

Heritage Discovery Day 2026 will be held in the neighbourhoods of Mount Pleasant and Riley Park. We are still looking for a few additional sites for next June so if you know someone who owns a heritage home in the area and may be interested in showcasing it on the tour, we would love to connect with you! Please email mail@vancouverheritagefoundation.org with the details and we will follow up with the next steps.

Heritage Discovery Day 2025

On Saturday, June 7th, we welcomed over 600 visitors to the neighbourhood of Kitsilano.

Nine heritage sites were featured during the Heritage Discovery Day, representing a wide range of housing styles and adaptive re-use – from a 1912 Craftsman, a 1908 Early Vernacular Style home to a beloved community site, the oldest non-Indigenous building still standing in Vancouver. A number of additional sites of interest and Places that Matter in the neighbourhoods were featured in the guidebook.

Over 170 dedicated volunteers were on hand to guide visitors through each home and showcase the unique features, answer questions, take photos and help visitors navigate between the tour stops. We are so appreciative of their support and dedication, as well as the generosity of our owners, who allow us to step inside so many incredible properties every year.

In addition to our presenting sponsor, Equitable Real Estate Investment Corp Ltd., we would also like to thank our house sponsors – Buntain Insurance, Engel & Volkers, and Odlum Brown. We would also like to say a thank you to our event photographers, Martin Knowles and Kamran Safari.

I just wanted to say how much my daughter and I enjoyed the tour this year – we love wandering the streets of Strathcona – and loved touring just one area of the city rather than driving from neighbourhood to neighbourhood.

We took transit to Science World and walked to the start of the tour, so better from an environmental perspective too.

I hope you will be able to do something similar next year!

Shannon Estates during the 2017 Heritage House Tour. Credit: Martin Knowles Photo/Media

2017 Heritage House Tour at Shannon Estates. Credit Martin Knowles Photo/Media

From Heritage House Tour 2019: "This Edwardian-style house was built in 1911 by John Bell along with its two neighbours facing Willow Street. "

From Heritage House Tour 2019: "This large Edwardian home was built by John and Edith Beaton."

The Downs Residence was designed by renowned architect Barry Downs for his own family and is an especially fine example of a West Coast Modern home.

From Heritage House Tour 2019: "A Swiss chalet style Craftsman bungalow of 1910 designed by Gamble and Knapp, features river stone in the garden, leaded-glass windows, half-timbered gables, big brackets and eaves. "

This large half-timbered home, sheltered within its lush street-side garden, started out as a revenue property for a well-known local boat builder. It was built as three units in the former garden of the 1912 house next door, which was later demolished for an apartment building.

From Heritage House Tour 2019: "This large Victorian home was built by George Weeks for his family when the West End was the young city’s fashionable residential neighbourhood. It is now the Diamond Centre for Living and part of Barclay Heritage Square. "

From Heritage House Tour 2019: "This house, built in 1929 by self-employed contractor William Earland, reflects more prosperous times and the taste beginning to form in the late 1920s for Storybookstyle architecture, supplanting the popular Craftsman Style and earlier boxy house forms."

One of the more remote early estates in Vancouver is now Crofton House School in the southwestern corner of the city.

From Heritage House Tour 2019: "As the Dunbar neighbourhood developed in the 1930s with a distinctly modest flavour compared with adjoining Kerrisdale, building contractor Mikkel Nielsen built a one-storey bungalow using the typical five-room floor plan of living room, dining room and kitchen across from two bedrooms and a bathroom."

Past Guidebooks

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2024
2023
2019
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Celebrating the Heritage House Tour

The Heritage House Tour has taken place on the first weekend in June since 2003. Enjoy highlights of some of the great spaces we’ve featured in recent years and what makes the tour special with the video below.

Do you or someone you know live in a house that may be a good fit for a future tour? We are always searching for great examples of heritage or character homes to open on our tours. If you’d like to know more, or have your home considered for inclusion on a future tour, contact us 604 264 9642 or by email.

In 2021 and 2022, the Heritage House Tour was offered virtually. Through a series of curated video tours, an exclusive web portal, and two live events, we explored six properties spread across Vancouver. The 2021 tour featured a 1958 award-winning Mid-Century Modern home in Southlands, an 1890s Strathcona home, a grand Shaughnessy estate home, and a 1928 apartment. Participants were able to experience the compelling stories, past and present, of early architects, builders and residents as well as recent restorations and how these distinct spaces have been adapted for modern living. The tour returned in-person as the re-imagined Heritage Discovery Day in 2023, focusing on the vibrant neighbourhood of Strathcona.