The Burnaby Art Gallery is located in Fairacres Mansion, which was designed by Robert Percival Sterling Twizell (1875-1964). Fairacres Mansion, also called Ceperley House, for its original owners, was built in 1910 at an estimated cost of
C$150,000.00, making it the largest and most expensive house in
Burnaby, British Columbia of its time. It was constructed in the
Edwardian Arts and Crafts style with handmade fixtures, carpentry and tiled fireplaces. The original grounds included a garage and horse stables, an aviary, gazebo and pergola, lagoons, strawberry fields, greenhouses, a steam plant and a gardener's cottage. The tiles throughout the house were imported from England, fabricated by
Conrad Dressler and his Medmenham Pottery. In the former billiards room and parlour, a grand oak mantelpiece, hand-carved by George Selkirk Gibson, bears a quote by
Ralph Waldo Emerson: "The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it." On the death of the original owner Grace Ceperley, the house was sold to a series of private owners. In 1939, it was acquired by Benedictine monks, and became an Abbey in 1953. The Order vacated the house in 1954 when it moved to
Westminster Abbey (British Columbia) in Mission. After the Benedictines sold the property, it was used by the Canadian Temple of the More Abundant Life and as a fraternity house for
Simon Fraser University's
Delta Upsilon fraternity. In 1966, the Burnaby Art Society, led by Jack Hardman, Polly Svangtun, Sheila Kincaid and Winifred Denny, among others, worked with the
City of Burnaby to purchase the site for C$166,000.00. The Burnaby Art Gallery opened its doors on June 10, 1967. == Permanent collection ==