Vancouver real estate: built by liquor baron and restored by billionaire, $27-million Rosemary Estate awaits new earl - Straight.com | Canada News Media
It’s been almost a year since one of Vancouver’s grandest homes has been on the market.
Rosemary Estate still awaits a new owner after it was listed on January 6, 2020.
The asking price remains the same at $26,988,000.
The 12-bedroom, 12-bath mansion has a rich heritage.
According to the Vancouver Heritage Foundation, the Shaughnessy property was built between 1912 and 1913.
“The first owner was lawyer and liquor magnate A.E. Tulk,” the foundation states online, referring to Ontario-born Albert Edward Tulk.
According to heritage organization, Tulk named the house after his only daughter, Rosemary.
A newspaper clipping from 1903 describes Tulk as the president and manager of Gold Seal Liquor Co.
Tulk’s company at the time was the distributor of, among others, Jos. E. Seagrams & Co. whiskeys.
Gold Seal Liquor Co. was also the B.C. agent of London brewer John Labatt.
It also represented California’s Napa and Sonoma Wine Co.
According to the 1903 clipping, Tulk made Vancouver his home in 1897.
In a report to the City of Vancouver about Shaughnessy, heritage consultant Donald Luxton recalled that Tulk was one of those who built three of the grandest homes in Shaughnessy.
One was businessman and politician Alexander Duncan McRae. He built the Hycroft mansion, now home of the University Women’s Club of Vancouver.
The other was newspaper publisher Walter Cameron Nichol, who became Lieutenant-Governor of B.C. His mansion was called Miramar.
Going back to Tulk, the Vancouver Heritage Foundation recalls online that the liquor magnate’s house was designed by architecture firm Maclure and Fox.
“Subsequent occupants were: Lieutenant Governor John William Fordham Johnson (1922-1931), Industrialist/horseman Austin Taylor (1931-1947) and the Order of the Convent of our Lady of the Cenacle (1947-1994),” according to the organization.
The heritage group went on to relate that the house was sold to Mingfei Zhao in 2014.
At the time the foundation made that update, the heritage home was being restored by architect Ken Wong and FairTradeWorks Construction.
CBC picked up the story in 2016, when renovation was going on, with a story titled ‘The new ‘Earl’ of Shaughnessy breathes life into historic home’.
The story described the new owner Zhao as a retired property developer from Beijing.
“Now 60, he admits to a net worth of over $1 billion Cdn and says he chose to retire to Vancouver for the ‘clean air’ and good education for his son,” CBC’s Chris Brown reported.
At the time, Zhao had already spent $6 million and counting for the restoration of the rundown estate.
The story stated that Zhao hopes that he can move in within the next year and half, becoming the “new Earl, as it were, of his restored Shaughnessy manor”.
Based on tracking by real-estate site Zealty.ca, the 3689 Selkirk Street property was listed on October 21, 2013 for $12,880,000.
Zhao purchased the heritage home on January 20, 2014 at $11,010,000.
According to Zealty.ca data, B.C. Assessment’s 2014 valuation of the property was $9,052,000.
The mansion’s 2020 valuation per B.C. Assessment as of July 1, 2019 is $15,370,000.
Zealty.ca notes that the estate’s asking price ($26,988,000) to assessed value ($15,370,000) is 1.76.
The listing by Sotheby’s International Realty Canada notes that the property includes a coachhouse with three bedrooms for staff.
In 1996, the City of Vancouver designated the estate as a protected heritage property.
The protection applies to the mansion, also formerly known as the Cenacle Convent, the south and west terraces, and the garden pergola.
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
