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North Face

The Roedde House, a small house in the city of Vancouver, was built and designed for a German couple by an "emigré" young English architect. Francis Rattenbury, who was in touch with the most recent architectural developments of the day, designed the house. It was not designed in a lavish or grand manner like many of the houses that were to come to Vancouver's west end by the time of World War I, but Rattenbury was greatly loved and admired by the family who lived in it.

Hipped roofs are roofs with four sloping sides.  You see in this picture how the roof slopes and then completes with a curve.

The house itself, in its massing, is a small cubic volume with a hipped pyramidal shaped roof. It is a delightful house, which almost resembles a child's toy. Yet, as you examine it, you become very aware of the great care and attention which has been given to its composition, its placement, and its many great details.

The placing of the bay window in the parlour which has turned what could have been a rectangular room into an elongated octogan. With quite an astonishing effect for a building of that time, one full south wall was created totally of glass which floods the room with light.

Corbels are projecting timber or stone blocks, often carved, that support a horizontal beam.