by Janet Nicol
Schoolteacher Gertrude Lawson was mid-career when she designed and oversaw construction of her West Vancouver manor in 1939, among the few single women in British Columbia to ever hold a mortgage at that time.
Within the Scottish-style stone walls subsequently erected at 680 17th Street, Miss Lawson (as she was known to her many students) would harbour aging family members, rent rooms to an assortment of tenants, and host decades of social and artistic gatherings.
So begins a local history article about Gertrude Lawson’s house of stone in West Vancouver, published online in Montecristo magazine. (Link to full article below photo.)
