Roedde House manager Sara Hepper (right) and longtime volunteer Jen Raguz are keeping this West End treasure as open to the public as possible.

ROEDDE HOUSE MUSEUM
History You Can See and Touch

(click on any photo to enlarge)

The West End’s Roedde House Museum is the only surviving example of late-Victorian housing architecture to not only remain intact, but to be painted, decorated, and furnished in the original style.

German immigrants Gustav and Matilda Roedde settled in Vancouver in 1888 where Gustav became Vancouver’s first bookbinder. By 1893 he was successful enough to afford to build a house in the new West End neighbourhood at 1415 Barclay, one of three treasured houses at what is now known as Barclay Heritage Square.

With its design attributed to famed architect Francis Rattenbury, Roedde House is a City of Vancouver-designated Class A Heritage House.

Roedde House Museum restored to its original splendour with paint from the Benjamin Moore “True Colours” collection of original colours from the Victorian era.

Since 1990, the Roedde House Preservation Society has taken painstaking care to restore and furnish the house to reflect the ambience of late Victorian family life. Visitors can walk into every room and will even be invited to touch some artifacts.

Closed early last year, like most other museums and cultural centres in response to the COVID-9 outbreak, Roedde House reopened last July with staff, board, and volunteers working together to create new ways for the museum to reach the public. One of their biggest projects was the creation of a podcast featuring recorded episodes wherein docent volunteers share stories and histories which they would normally present during a tour of the museum.

According to museum manager Sara Hepper: “This was all done remotely and allowed us to engage our dedicated volunteers in a safe way, as many of them wanted to continue to be involved while at home.” The volunteers carry on with additions to the podcast, which can be accessed here and is available to listen to from home and by visitors to the museum who can listen on museum-loaned tablets as they walk through the house on a self-guided tour.

The museum is open for self-guided tours on Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. with set time slots and online ticketing options. To keep the spirit of their popular Tea and Tour Sundays, they now also give away a free packaged sample of their Roedde Cream Earl Grey tea to all visitors, so that they can enjoy a cup at home.

According to Hepper, “Like many other museums in 2020, we created new online programming options to reach audiences looking for content from home. This included taking our monthly Jazz Series online by recording duos performing in our parlour and releasing the videos on our YouTube channel.

A glimpse into the past via a Victorian era kitchen and pantry.

“We created our first online school program video as well, so that we could make our school tours available to teachers and students who were now unable to come to the museum. This video is available for free viewing, after registering for a password, and was made possible thanks to great efforts from our school program volunteers. We also created YouTube videos featuring local collectors who shared unique Victorian-Era pieces while discussing what collecting meant to them.

“Another ongoing project, which began in 2020, was our Roedde Recipe Challenge which asks our social media followers to try out recipes from the historic Victorian and Edwardian cookbooks in our collection. Recipes continue to be posted regularly on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and we encourage those who try them out to snap a photo of their hopefully tasty experiment and use the tag #roedderecipechallenge.”

Rodde House was also able to hold a Speakeasy-themed fundraiser event showcasing an incredibly decadent display of roaring twenties fashions from the collection of Ivan Sayers, and ended 2020 with a brand-new take on their tour-experience by partnering with Famous Artists Limited to create Immersive Christmas Carol Tours. These tours allowed ticket holders to safely tour the house while interactive elements, from speakers to projections, brought the world of Scrooge to life.

“This immersive story-telling experience was something we hope to do more of,” says Hepper, “and for those who missed the special tours last year, we do plan to host them again this December.

“Going into 2021, we also created our first online crafting workshop, which is available on our website for those looking for projects to do from home.”

Roedde House continues to plan for online programs and concerts alongside their self-guided tours, hoping to enlist more volunteers who have an interest in online programming or who would like to help support the current self-guided tours. It is only with this community support that the museum is able to remain open and continue its role as downtown Vancouver’s only house museum.

For more information on Roedde House’s creative response to the pandemic visit their website here, and if you are interested in volunteering to assist with this work, you’ll find the volunteer form here.

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