Eighth Street Residence

The Eighth Street Residence speaks to the direct role local coal companies played in shaping the physical, economic and social development of the Nanaimo area. In 1884, in one of the earliest known examples of community planning in British Columbia, Samuel Robins, the Superintendent of the Vancouver Coal Mining and Land Company, purchased Harewood Estates, a large parcel of land between Nanaimo and the base of Mount Benson. Robins subdivided the area into "Five Acre" farms and made them available at affordable prices. Robins envisioned small-scale farming as an alternate means of sustaining mining families during coal market depressions. The Eighth Street Residence was built as the farmhouse for one of the original five-acre farm parcels.

Built about 1912, the Eighth Street Residence is a very good example of an Edwardian era bungalow. The building's solid, substantial appearance and minimal decoration reflects the move away from the ornamental excesses of the Victorian era, as well its function as a working farmhouse.