Vancouver-style homes for sale, just outside Beijing
October 2, 2016 by Harvey KardosVancouver’s west side exists in a parallel universe, and it’s located in a sprawling gated community in Beijing.
Vancouver Forest is a Chinese interpretation of Vancouver’s west side, designed by a Vancouver firm to look like the old houses of Dunbar, Shaughnessy or Kitsilano.
Each house is different from the other, in old-world styles typical of Vancouver: the Craftsman, the Tudor, the Story Book, with some Victorian thrown in. The garages are out of sight, the streets are in a grid, and they are tree-lined, with gardens. They don’t have the lush, world-famous gardens of Vancouver’s west side, but they are still pretty green for a project 30 minutes from Beijing’s airport.
It’s a rare thing to have an area filled with trees that are decades old – mature by Beijing’s standards – but urban designer Paul Rosenau designed around those trees specifically because they are so rare. Mr. Rosenau is based in Vancouver, but 15 years ago when China began its massive economic growth he spent about 200 days a year there. Their housing economy softened two years ago, but he still spends half the year there.
Vancouver Forest is a residential project with 900 luxury single-family homes on 55 hectares. Developer Beijing Capital Group built it in phases, starting in 2002 and completing in 2015. It was Mr. Rosenau’s first project in China, and it launched his company, EKISTICS, into the Chinese market. He was one of several B.C. firms involved with the project, which is made up of houses 3,000 to 5,000 square feet in size.
His firm, EKISTICS, designed every aspect of the community, including the master planning, architecture and landscape architecture. When it came time to market the project, the developer insisted on calling it after its inspirational westcoast city. Vancouver conveys positive things to the Chinese, enough so that the name also shows up in many condo developments around China. 
Charles Pittar, chief executive officer of Chinese real estate website Juwai.com, says it’s popular for developers to build entire communities with international themes. The country has famously replicated even cities, such as Paris, with an Eiffel tower of its own.
“The developer claims to have traveled to Canada more than 10 times to learn more about North American homes and lifestyles,” he said in an email. “They hired Canadian architects to design the whole community and claim to have planted 10,000 trees to give it a suitably leafy environment.”
Like all single-family homes in China, they were marketed to a wealthy buyer. The average price at Vancouver Forest is about read more