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

Queens shares its name with Queens Avenue, which crosses the West Vancouver slope from east to west. On this page, Queens means the blocks that MLS® listings file under that name: the upper streets above Dundarave, with the 2400 block of Queens Avenue near the middle. The Upper Levels Highway runs along the top. On October 11, 2026, homes were listed on Queens Avenue, Rosebery Avenue, Palmerston Avenue and Orchard Lane.

All of it is on a hill. Natural Resources Canada's elevation data gives 27 metres above sea level at Marine Drive and 25th Street, in Dundarave village, 54 metres at Mathers Avenue and 24th Street, and 132 metres at the bus stop in the 2400 block of Queens Avenue. Brissenden Park, beside the highway, is at 169 metres. A house on Queens Avenue is therefore 105 metres higher than the village shops.

The area is small and residential. Between Palmerston Avenue and the highway, OpenStreetMap shows two parks and no shop, cafe or other public building. The houses stand on the avenues and on short streets such as Orchard Lane, Russet Place and Shamrock Place. The nearest grocery store and cafe are down the hill in Dundarave village.

In our view, Queens suits a buyer who puts the house and the view first and gives up the short walk to the beach and the shops. A buyer who wants to leave the car at home most days will be happier in Dundarave or Ambleside.

West Vancouver became a municipality in 1912, and its first council settled the street names that year. The West Vancouver Archives record that Bylaw 18 of 1912 named the avenues in alphabetical order, starting with Argyle at the waterfront and climbing the slope of Hollyburn Ridge. The streets were numbered from 3rd in the east to 27th in the west.

Queens Avenue and Rosebery Avenue are both on the bylaw's list. They are the Q and the R of the series, one step above Palmerston. The Archives add that early residents may have been asked to suggest names and that the origin of each name is unclear. No source we read says who Queens Avenue honours.

People called this height the Upper Levels long before the highway existed. The Archives record that a car ferry began to sail from Horseshoe Bay in 1948 and that Marine Drive could no longer carry the traffic. The province built a new road in 1955 and 1956 above most of the developed part of West Vancouver. It was soon known as the Upper Levels Highway, and today it is the top edge of Queens.

One street name just above Queens comes from skiing. The Hollyburn Heritage Society records that a chairlift up Hollyburn Ridge opened on January 17, 1951 and ran for fourteen years, until a fire on June 6, 1965. The Archives record that the road to its lower station was the part of 26th Street north of the highway, renamed Chairlift Road in 1962.

Errands start with a trip downhill. Dundarave village, on Marine Drive around 25th Street, is the closest group of shops. TransLink's fall 2026 schedule gives the 251 bus less than five minutes between the 2400 block of Queens Avenue and Marine Drive at 25th Street, in either direction. On foot the way home climbs 105 metres. In our experience, most households here drive for groceries.

The table on this page names the nearest recreation centre and the nearest library and gives the straight line distance to each. Both are down the hill, east of Dundarave village.

In our experience, the side streets are quiet. The highway is close, though. Rosebery Avenue and the top ends of the numbered streets are nearest to it, and the District describes the Brissenden land on Rosebery Avenue as immediately south of the highway. In our experience, how much traffic you hear changes from lot to lot, so visit at rush hour and stand in the garden.

Pearley and Clara Brissenden lived in a house on 2.4 acres beside the Upper Levels Highway, most of it covered by forest. The District's page on Brissenden Park says the house was built in 1948. Clara Brissenden died in June 1990, and her will left the land to the District for a park. The Supreme Court of British Columbia told the story of the gift in a 2020 decision. Its reasons say that until 2018 the District left the land as it was, apart from renting out the house.

In 2017 the District asked the court to let it sell part of the land and use the money to buy the last two private lots on the Ambleside waterfront for park. The Attorney General of British Columbia opposed the request. On June 29, 2020, the court allowed the District to divide three house lots from the southern part and sell them. Its conditions added to the park an unused strip of land that had been set aside for 25th Street, and protected the trees in the northern 10 feet of each new lot.

The northern part is the park you can visit today. The court's reasons say that from the fall of 2018 the District removed the house, made walking trails and put up a sign. A trail joins the park to Rosebery Avenue across one of the three lots. A counter on that trail recorded an average of six people a day between June 5 and October 2, 2019, so expect a quiet place.

The map on this page shows Hillside Park closest to the middle of Queens and Irwin Park lower down, beside the elementary school. The beaches are at the bottom of the slope. The photo at the top of this page shows that slope from a ship on Burrard Inlet in August 2016. Queens is partway up it, above the apartment towers on the shore and below the forest.