Dundarave, West Vancouver: Homes for Sale, Prices, Schools and Daily Life

Dundarave is on the north shore of Burrard Inlet, west of Ambleside. The province's place name office puts it between Hollyburn and Altamont. Marine Drive crosses the neighbourhood from east to west, and the shops of Dundarave village line it around 24th and 25th Streets. Dundarave Park, with its beach and pier, is at the foot of 25th Street.

North of Marine Drive the numbered streets climb the slope. The avenues that cross them include Haywood, Kings, Lawson, Mathers, Nelson, Ottawa and Palmerston, and on October 9, 2026 homes were listed for sale on every one of those seven. Homes were also listed on Bellevue Avenue, Marine Drive and 28th Street.

The village is small. West Vancouver Schools says Irwin Park Elementary stands within three blocks of the business properties that serve what it calls a small community. Larger public buildings are east along Marine Drive: the community centre and pool in the 2100 block and the library in the 1900 block. The Seawalk joins Dundarave to Ambleside along the water.

In our view, Dundarave suits a buyer who wants to live near the sea in a quieter place than Ambleside, with a beach, an elementary school and daily shops close to home. Expect a slope, because most houses stand uphill from the village. A buyer who wants a townhouse or a duplex home will find more choice elsewhere on the North Shore, since more than nine in ten of the homes listed here on October 9, 2026 were detached houses.

The District of West Vancouver says it is on the traditional and unceded territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam Nations. Its history page explains that, as Vancouver grew, people from the city crossed Burrard Inlet to picnic or camp on this shore. Later they settled in a line of small communities that faced the water. Dundarave was one of those communities.

The name is Scottish. The province's place name office records that Russell Elliot Macnaghten, who lived from 1860 to 1918 and taught classics at McGill University College in Vancouver and later at the University of British Columbia, bought and divided land here with others in 1909. He named it after Dundarave Castle on Loch Fyne, the old home of his clan. The record adds that the castle was reached by rowboat and that the name comes from Gaelic words meaning "the two oars". The province adopted Dundarave as an official place name on December 7, 1937, at first for the post office.

Most of early Dundarave appeared within three years. The District's Time Walk history site says two sisters built the Clachan in 1912 as a hotel and tearoom, on the shore where Dundarave Park is today. Conservative Hall was built on Marine Drive in 1913 and was also rented to the school board as the one-room Dundarave School. On January 1, 1914, a station opened at Dundarave on the Pacific Great Eastern Railway, which ran trains between North Vancouver and West Vancouver from 1913 to 1928. The same site records that the public ferry from Vancouver docked at Ambleside, so land sellers brought buyers to Dundarave in a private boat.

The District built Dundarave Pier in 1914 for $40,000 as a ferry landing. The site proved too exposed for ferries, and the pier became a place for visitors. The first Dundarave Regatta was held there in 1918. In the 1920s, people from Vancouver built small summer cabins along the waterfront, and the Fortune Cup Inn opened as a hotel and restaurant at the foot of 25th Street in 1920. Most of the cabins were later replaced by apartment buildings, and the inn was demolished in 1971 to make Dundarave Park larger.

Two later dates matter to a resident today. Irwin Park Elementary opened in 1955 as a school of four rooms, on park land that the municipality transferred to the school board. The Centennial Seawalk was built in 1967 to mark 100 years of Canada. The District bought the Clachan building in the 1940s, and the building was declared a West Vancouver historic site on February 22, 1992. A series of restaurants has operated in it since the 1940s.

Daily shopping happens in the village on Marine Drive. The counts on this page show the cafes, grocery stores, pharmacies and clinics mapped inside the area, and the distance table gives the straight line distance to Park Royal, downtown Vancouver and Lions Gate Hospital. In our experience, residents walk to the village for food and coffee and take the bus or drive to Park Royal for larger stores.

The West Vancouver Community Centre and Aquatic Centre are at 2121 Marine Drive, between Dundarave and Ambleside. The District's page lists a leisure pool, two main pools, a water slide, a sports gym, a music hall, an arts studio, a youth lounge and childminding. The pool closes from November 27 to December 20, 2026 for its yearly maintenance. The Seniors' Activity Centre is close by at 695 21st Street. It serves adults aged 55 and over with a cafe, fitness and arts programs, and a shuttle bus that takes seniors to the centre and to local shops and doctors. The West Vancouver Memorial Library is at 1950 Marine Drive.

Dundarave has two yearly events of its own. The Dundarave Festival of Lights Society runs the Dundarave Festival of Lights. In 2025 the society's website listed free concerts on four Saturdays from November 29 to December 20, the last with a bonfire and carol singing. The District's history site describes the display of Christmas trees in Dundarave Park each December as a way of raising money for charity. The summer event is the Dundarave Hoedown. In August 2025 the District paused road work on Marine Drive so that the event could take place.

The village is changing on one block. District council approved a three storey building with shops and homes at 2452 to 2496 Marine Drive on July 25, 2022. In August 2025 the District's page said the project was in an early phase, with a new storm drain being laid under Marine Drive between 24th and 25th Streets and part of the planted centre strip of the road removed until the building is finished. In our view, a buyer should walk that block before deciding, to see what stage the work has reached.

Dundarave Park is on the waterfront at the foot of 25th Street. The District lists a beach, a playground, picnic tables, a concession and washrooms that are open all year from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Its page describes more than 50 metres of sandy beach, with a swimming area that lifeguards watch in summer and a floating swimming dock that is installed each year in late June. Seven palm trees, given to the District in the fall of 2019, were planted near the beach.

The pier extends from the park into the water. In January 2022 a major storm arrived together with a king tide, a name for the highest tides of the year. It damaged both the Dundarave pier and the Ambleside pier, and the District closed them. Repairs began in June 2023, and the District's project page, as saved in March 2025, says the work is complete and both piers are open.

The Centennial Seawalk begins at Dundarave Park and runs 1.7 km east beside the water to the foot of 18th Street. The District describes it as an easy walk with views of Burrard Inlet, the mountains, the Vancouver skyline and ships passing under the Lions Gate Bridge. The photo at the top of this page looks east along that shore from Dundarave.

Rules for dogs differ from place to place here. Leashed dogs may use the paved paths in Dundarave Park, and the District keeps them off the grass, the beach, the pier and the playground. On the Seawalk a leash of two metres or less is required and each person may bring two dogs. A fenced path beside the Seawalk between 19th and 24th Streets lets dogs run without a leash, and Hay Park is one of the District's 14 off-leash areas. Up the hill, Irwin Park has a public sports field beside the school. The table on this page lists the other parks nearby.