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Famous skateboard residence goes up for sale in Maple Ridge

Kyle Dion’s house on Stoney Avenue has a backyard feature few others can boast
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Kyle’s son, Shea Dion skates in the backyard bowl after graduating high school. (Contributed photo)

A house synonymous with skateboarding in Maple Ridge is up for sale this weekend.

Kyle Dion, who owns New Line Skateparks Inc., grew up in the five-bedroom, two-bathroom house on Stoney Avenue. His brothers bought it from his parents and it had been sold from sibling to sibling a few times before ending up in Dion’s hands.

From the front, the property looks like many along the street, but the attraction in the backyard would have many a board fiend salivating. A large above-ground concrete bowl – perfect for afternoon shredding – sits in the back corner.

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In a telephone interview, Dion said the backyard has always had ramps galore, but it was not until 2016 that he built the bowl so he and his children could have something close to home to skate on.

“The dream came full circle,” Dion said, “I started as a skateboard advocate in Maple Ridge, pressuring council to try and get parks built for ages, and we finally got the Greg Moore Youth Centre and parks in Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge and it was always the dream to have something closer to home.”

It does not get much closer than 20 steps away from the back door.

Long before the bowl came around, Dion built many a great memory on the property.

“That’s where my business started,” he remembered. “We’re 20 years in the business, New Line Skateparks. We design and build concrete skate parks for municipalities as a business.

“It’s grown quite a bit, but back then it was a couple friends and we built the ramps in the backyard and we had a drafting guy in the basement and part-time accounting in the house.”

READ MORE: New skate park salutes Pitt Meadows landscape

Dion said it is incredible the business that started out of the suburban family property back in the day has grown into a global business.

The quality time spent with his loved ones in the house will also be treasured.

“My kids growing up in there and myself and good times with all my brothers over the years,” he recalled, “Just skating and hanging out with our friends.

“It was kind of like the house that a lot of people would come to and everyone would hang out.”

The local businessman is hoping that whoever buys the house keeps the skate feature.

“It took a lot of effort, but was also a labour of love,” he said. “And it’s professionally built because that was what we do for a living.

“My kids and their friends have had so much fun in there, so it’d be a tragedy for the new family to just rip it out. It would be the hope that another family could move in there and keep making memories like we did.”

When asked whether his new house would have any skate features, he started to chuckle.

“Oh, I think so,” he said. “I’ve got to negotiate with my wife a little bit – I had to last time – but that’s the idea. I like to have something close to home.”



ronan.p.odoherty@blackpress.ca

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