Welcome to the Pitt Meadows Museum and Archive's Memories Mapping Project!
Click on the map to add your history or explore what others have left.
This project funded in part by:
Government of British Columbia
BC | Canada 150 Grants
A house with a checkered past is tucked away on a lot on North Harris Road. Is it the house of a German spy?<\/p>\r\n
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Built 1912c. the house was originally owned by Alvo von Alvensleben who also owned vast tracts of land in the area prior to W.W. I. The son of a Count, von Alvensleben was born in Germany in 1879. He immigrated to Canada in 1904 and arrived in Vancouver that same year where he became a land speculator and a promoter of other business ventures. He was wildly successful with bringing in German investment dollars to the Province with some of his higher profile ventures being the Dominion Trust building in Vancouver and the Wigwam Inn on Indian Arm. As so many others did, he amassed a fortune in the early years of the 20th century but lost it all in the crash of 1913 causing him to return to Germany to find new financing. Before he could return to Canada the war intervened and his retry was denied by the Canadian Government. Not to be dissuaded, von Alvensleben entered the still-neutral United States and moved to Seattle (with a short internment at Salt Lake City during the war) where he remained until his death in 1963. And what became of the Pitt Meadows residence? Von Alvensleben had never lived in it, and it is thought to have been a caretaker residence for his Pitt Meadows property holdings. It was sold, along with other land holdings in 1915. Rumours abounded in the lower mainland that von Alvensleben, who had always declared himself a proud Prussian, was a German spy. Rumour was that his brother, Werner (Bodo),also an immigrant to Canada, was shot by the British navy for being a spy. The rampant xenophobia of the time made all rumours of such highly unreliable and a secret that both brothers took to their graves.<\/p>\r\n
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The house was demolished in 2022, and nothing remains except the stories we tell.<\/p>","SEO_LINK":"a-spy-among-us","VIDEO_LINK":"","SOUNDCLOUD_LINK":"","IMG1":"","IMG2":"","IMG3":"","IMG4":"","IMG5":"","IMG6":"","IMG7":"","IMG1_THUMB":"","IMG2_THUMB":"","IMG3_THUMB":"","IMG4_THUMB":"","IMG5_THUMB":"","IMG6_THUMB":"","IMG7_THUMB":""}X
A house with a checkered past is tucked away on a lot on North Harris Road. Is it the house of a German spy?
Built 1912c. the house was originally owned by Alvo von Alvensleben who also owned vast tracts of land in the area prior to W.W. I. The son of a Count, von Alvensleben was born in Germany in 1879. He immigrated to Canada in 1904 and arrived in Vancouver that same year where he became a land speculator and a promoter of other business ventures. He was wildly successful with bringing in German investment dollars to the Province with some of his higher profile ventures being the Dominion Trust building in Vancouver and the Wigwam Inn on Indian Arm. As so many others did, he amassed a fortune in the early years of the 20th century but lost it all in the crash of 1913 causing him to return to Germany to find new financing. Before he could return to Canada the war intervened and his retry was denied by the Canadian Government. Not to be dissuaded, von Alvensleben entered the still-neutral United States and moved to Seattle (with a short internment at Salt Lake City during the war) where he remained until his death in 1963. And what became of the Pitt Meadows residence? Von Alvensleben had never lived in it, and it is thought to have been a caretaker residence for his Pitt Meadows property holdings. It was sold, along with other land holdings in 1915. Rumours abounded in the lower mainland that von Alvensleben, who had always declared himself a proud Prussian, was a German spy. Rumour was that his brother, Werner (Bodo),also an immigrant to Canada, was shot by the British navy for being a spy. The rampant xenophobia of the time made all rumours of such highly unreliable and a secret that both brothers took to their graves.
The house was demolished in 2022, and nothing remains except the stories we tell.
Details:
Latitude: 49.2712544279729
Longitude: -122.68849446854
Direct Link: https://www.pittmeadowsmuseum.com/locations/a-spy-among-us
Welcome to the Pitt Meadows Museum and Archive's Memories Mapping Project!
Click on the map to add your history or explore what others have left.
This project funded in part by:
Government of British Columbia
BC | Canada 150 Grants