Feature Stories
The Hottest Guy in Town
By Matt O'Grady published Aug 31, 2006
"THAT," SAYS WENDY HUDSON, pointing westward, “is the Dollar Mill house. Mr. Dollar himself built it.” We’re standing across from one of the last remaining examples of the sort of housing Robert Dollar built for senior employees of his lumber mill, which operated from 1917 to 1943 and spawned the North Shore community of Dollarton. The shingle cottage with the jerkin roof dates to 1922 and is a protected heritage site; surrounding it are examples of 1970s-, ’80s- and ’90s-renos that collectively chart the area’s evolution from a blue-collar mill town to a white-collar community now considered part of Deep Cove—by real estate agents if not locals.
Hudson’s property, across the street, is decidedly not a heritage site. The rickety frame house was built in 1950 and floated down Indian Arm in 1969; in the words of the general contractor Hudson has hired to renovate it, “There’s very little goodness to work with here.” Hudson bought the 4,500-square-foot Cape Cod-style home last year intending to fix it up while preserving its character.
The contractor, Brad Wurmlinger, has called this on-site meeting—on a Tuesday morning in mid-July—to deliver bad news: after spending two weeks gutting the interior, he’s discovered severe structural problems. The house will have to be rebuilt.
Wurmlinger, 34, is the principal behind CBD Construction; he launched his building career at age 12, working summers for his father’s and uncle’s drywalling business. At any one time he’ll have three or four Deep Cove-size projects on the go, with at least 50 trades and subcontractors and 100 workers involved in each. His focus is on large-scale home renovations, mostly on Vancouver’s west side and North Shore, though he also dabbles in retail and restaurant construction. He is, like everybody connected to local real estate, a busy guy—he gets at least a call a day offering work, and turns down most of it. Being in demand means you can be picky. Brad won’t do a $50,000 job, or even a $100,000 job. And he doesn’t do the ’burbs. Why? Because, he says, everyone there fancies himself a do-it-yourselfer. “My brother-in-law wants to do the plumbing” is the sort of refrain he hears east of Boundary.
