Bob and Janet Bigelow are the proud owners of Prince George's latest home to win a heritage designation.
Owners of the Munro-Moffat house at 153 Moffat Street were presented with this year's heritage citation award by by representatives of City's Heritage Commission on Saturday.
Once owned by Northern Hardware founder Alex Moffat, the couple have lived in the spacious two-storey log home for 20 years.
They bought it from a friend, Connie Wagner, after Janet fell in love with the home while she attended a baby shower.
"I told her, if you ever want to sell the house, let me know and so she called us," Janet said. "I dragged my husband there and made him look at it and we actually bought the house over the phone."
The Bigelows had been trying to up-size to accommodate a growing family and at 1,600 square feet with one bedroom on the bottom floor and four bedrooms on the second, it was all they were asking for and then some.
"Both of us grew up in the city and we grew up outside the city so to find a property in the city on five city lots is like having a country home but living downtown, it's really nice," Bob said.
Local researcher Valerie Giles said the home was built in 1914-15.
It was originally owned by John Munro during the years he was the bank officer at the Bank of Montreal. When Munro purchased the home, he moved in with his wife Winifred, his son Duncan and daughter Josephine.
In 1923, Northern Hardware founder Alexander Bohannon Moffat bought the house for his new bride, Florence (Floss) Harwood, and the children from his first marriage, son Harold and adopted daughter Alice.
Their first child, Keith, was born in the house on May 25, 1924 and altogether, Florence bore six sons and two daughters. Harold went on to become mayor from 1969 to 1978.
Distinctive features of the home are a large verandah and 11 diamond-shaped mullions on the windows facing front on the second floor. Inside, the living room has what was then the largest fireplace in the city.
"It's rustic, it's beautiful and it's welcoming and you get that feeling the minute you walk through the door," Janet said, who added the living room is so large the kids played hockey there.
"In the winter the sun comes through the windows and in the summer it doesn't," she noted.
The house remains in good shape. Two years ago a 36-foot long log along the bottom portion of the south side had to be replaced with treated wood because of rot, but the log on the inside portion of the length still "looks like it was put there yesterday," Bob said.
Both in their early 50s, the Bigelows have raised four children in the home - Ben, 26, Lyndsay, 23, Kirsten, 21, and Jackson, 19. Bob works in maintenance and security at College of New Caledonia and Janet works in the service department at City Hall.
