| Helmcken House in Different Eras: | Pre-Park | Early Park | Late Park | Present Park |

Building Helmcken House

When Heklmcken house was first built, the Douglas House was the only other dwelling in the neighbourhood. A narrow, dirt road ran by the house and it was surrounded by fields and trees. People built more houses and widened the street, naming it in honour of another resident, Andrew Elliott, the fourth premier of British Columbia (1876–78). When construction of the Royal BC Museum began in the 1960s, Elliott Street was closed. In 1974, the space was remade into Elliott Street Square, after the addition of St Ann's Schoolhouse.

As the Helmcken family grew, so did this house. You can see three stages in the structure. The original 1852 log cabin was built in the post and timber style with squared logs and cedar shingles. Hearths in three rooms join into a single chimney. The house’s middle section, containing a dining room and upstairs bedrooms, was added in 1856. In the 1880s, Dr Helmcken added a framed wing with a second storey and front porch, and shortly after, a glass sunroom extension inside the picket fence, with its own door into the house.

Helmcken House, about 1900
BC Archives, A-00964

Helmcken House about 1935
BC Archives, A-01654