Character house near Commercial Drive — quiet street, garden, cedar sauna

Description

Our house is a century old, on a quiet tree-lined block in East Vancouver, two blocks off Commercial Drive — the city's best street for espresso, Italian delis, and produce markets, with the Rio Theatre, the Cultch, and a dozen good restaurants within walking distance. Trout Lake and its Saturday farmers market are a short walk away. SkyTrain is four blocks from the door, which puts downtown, the airport, and the SFU Vancouver campus within easy reach. UBC is a longer trip, roughly 45 minutes by transit. Guests have the main and upper floor: three bedrooms (queen beds), two bathrooms, a full kitchen, a living room with a gas fireplace, and a private entrance. There's a projector and pull-down screen in the living room — good for films on a wet evening, or for running through a talk before you give it. One bedroom has a work nook with a desk, chair, and monitor — modest in size, but a proper place to write. Fast wifi throughout. The heat pump both heats and cools, and while the house is old, it's been looked after: roof in 2019, updated bedrooms, kitchen and baths. Outside there's a large garden and patio, and a private cedar sauna with an outdoor shower — genuinely one of the better things about a Vancouver November. Garden and yard care are arranged and paid for by us, including autumn leaves and any snow clearing. We live on the lower level, which has its own separate entrance. Laundry is in a shared basement area. We travel a good deal during the winter months, and we have a local contact who looks after the property and is on call for anything that needs attention. A little about us: I'm a retired university professor, now working on music full-time; my wife is a nurse practitioner retiring this autumn. It's a house where music gets played — I'm in the middle of a Spanish-language song cycle. We've lived on this block a long time and know the neighbourhood well: the good bakeries, which trail to walk the dog on, where to find decent hardware. We're happy to pass all of that along. This is a real family neighbourhood, with schools and parks within walking distance, so it suits a visiting scholar bringing family as well as someone here to write. Available for the full academic year, September 16 to April 30, or for a single term. April 30 is firm — our kids come home for the summer and we're all here in the house through to September.