In its heyday, Ioco was a bustling enclave of homes whose residents had their own grocery, church, school and community hall. Everything workers at the nearby Imperial Oil refinery and their families could need was right there.
At Sunday's Ioco Ghost Town Days, heritage consultant Donald Luxton will give a talk and answer questions about the first step in breathing life back into the old company townsite, the restoration of the Tremaine residence. Renderings of the work planned for the gabled Craftsman bungalow that was built in 1921 will also be on display as part of the annual event.
Luxton, who has been involved with heritage conservation in Port Moody since 1997, said the preservation of the Tremaine house and the other 12 buildings still standing at the Ioco site presents a rare opportunity to tell a story of British Columbia’s industrial heritage that has been lost as resources depleted, companies moved on and townsites were abandoned. He said Ioco is the last such company townsite left in the Lower Mainland.
“Industry does move on, things change,” Luxton told The Tri-City News. “This is a town that was typical of how thousands and thousands of people lived across the province. This is a great story about our industrial past.”
With most of the old Ioco townsite and its buildings now owned by developer Brilliant Circle Group (BCG), which plans to redevelop the area, Luxton said the restoration of the Tremaine residence is an important signal of the company’s commitment to preserving the site’s heritage.
“People have been waiting for years to see something positive happen with those buildings,” said Luxton, who’s acting as a heritage consultant on the BCG project.
The restoration work on the Tremaine house is expected to take about a year.
Luxton said most of the bungalow’s heritage value is in its exterior. The gabled front with shingled peaks, complex roofline, projecting rectangular front bay and a partial verandah with triple-squared columns will all be restored while the interior is opened up and brought to modern standards. The building will also be made more accessible.
When completed, the home will be used as an office for BCG and meeting space for the community. Beyond that, it could be further repurposed back into a private residence, artists’ studios or live-work space.
“It’s a very simple building,” Luxton said. “We want to be very careful we don’t take away any opportunities.
