The 2400 Motel on Kingsway opened in 1946. It still has an old fashioned, retro feel and its huge red and blue neon sign.
I discovered the 2400 Motel on Kingsway when I wrote Frommer’s With Kids Vancouver about a decade or so ago. Loved the old fashioned, retro feel of the place and its huge red and blue neon sign. The freshly painted green and white bungalows had the feel of a country cabin. Kids could play on the lawn outside, the rooms were clean and functional, and staying there was inexpensive.
Endangered List:
The 18 bungalows and the office have made Heritage Vancouver’s Top 10 Endangered hit list for 2011. “It’s really hard to isolate 10 sites in the city that are in danger—there are hundreds and hundreds that we could put on our list,” says Don Luxton, president of Heritage Vancouver.
People, says Luxton, are always surprised to find that a 1946 building is considered heritage. “Our city is only 125 years old,” he says. “Why would it not be a heritage site?”
Post-war car culture:
The heritage case for the 2400 Motel is that as an auto court, it is one of the last and best examples of post-war car culture. The 2007 Statement of Significance by Birmingham & Wood Architects for the City of Vancouver describes it as “a rare place of shared memories.”
“Not only did the 2400 function as a home-away-from-home for many travelers…but it has entered Vancouverite’s collective imagination as a seemingly immutable part of the city—a whole, miniature world from an earlier simpler time.”
The City of Vancouver bought the 2400 its three-acre site in 1989 as part of the proposed Norquay Village neighbourhood centre. But the plan, released earlier this year, lacks any heritage retention. Luxton says that while it’s unrealistic to expect the entire site be preserved, he’d like to see certain elements such as the neon sign and maybe one or two of the bungalows remain.
“Will that happen or will this turn into a high-rise? We don’t know, but we’re sounding the alarm,” he says.
The other sites on the list in order of most endangered are: Carleton, Kitchener and Sexsmith Schools, Shannon Estate, Strathcona North of Hastings, Gordon T. Legg Residence, Collingwood Library, Lower Mount Pleasant and several Granville Street buildings from the 1880s.
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9 comments on “2400 Motel: Vancouver’s 10th most endangered heritage site”
It would be great if a progressive design hotel owner like those of the Ace Hotel or even the owner of the Gladstone Hotel could purchase it and restore it to its former glory. Or better yet, play up those heritage elements and put in modern conveniences that would make it a desirable destination for both visitors and locals.
I love that place! Thanks for drawing it to the attention of your readers! We always stayed there as a family in the 60’s. My father was in a wheelchair and it was one of the few wheelchair accessible spots in the city.
we recently stayed at 2400,for the third time.a great motel.very retro,very nice.
especially for my large family.why can’t they leave things alone.this is a great motel.
hope its there for next years trip.
thanks to the staff of 2400. great job guys.
In 1980 you couldn’t find a place to live in Vancouver for love nor money, and when I moved here from Winnipeg that June I ended up camping out with my two young ‘uns at Tsawwassen for five weeks till I found a little dump near Main and King Edward to shelter us. But the first week after racing halfway across the country with two kids and a cat to beat the moving van carrying all our earthly goods, the 2400 motel was a refuge from it all I still have fond memories of!
I dropped by the 2400 today with my 7-year old grandson to say hello to a whole group – about a dozen this year – of women friends, now old lesbians, who have come from the Tacoma/Seattle area for the Vancouver Folk Festival. My friend Gloria has been coming for 25 years, and has stayed at this motel for most of them! It’s practically home to a lot of people, I suspect, and I hope at least some of it can be saved…
Love multi-generational stories. Thanks for posting Margaret
Since my Folks met in Vancouver, my Father told my Grandparents to stay there in the late 50’s when he introduced them to my Mother. I was the youngest in my family born in the late 60s, and have fond memories of a yearly visit to Vancouver from Alberta. Almost every spring-break in the 1970s and 80s we would come. And this continued, most years, with one of the more exciting visits being for Expo 1986, when the nearby Skytrain was completed. In more recent years since marrying myself, my own wife and I have been able to enjoy and explore Vancouver with the 2400 as a base. Almost 60 years of 3 generations in my family have enjoyed it. The looming sky rises and high land prices may mean the City won’t hold it for long. But like is said on this blog it would be great to at very least see some elements like the sign and several bungalows preserved. Staying there because the property is so large is like a refuge from the city, with a green grass yard to enjoy out your door ! Very rare in the modern era.
That’s amazing – 60 years and three generations! Can’t say that about many places in Vancouver. Thanks so much for your note. Eve
My friend Billy McMullen’s mother worked in the laundry & housekeeping for along period not sure how long she worked there for, but it must have been fairly hard working conditions. Praise to the hard work these people did for the 2400 Motel. thank you all. From Larry Fuller.
One of my earliest memories, pre-age-five, is of walking along Kingsway with my father on his hunt for bottles he could turn in for cash. When we got as far as the motel, we would turn around and head home. We lived on Rupert Street at 41st Avenue, so it was quite a hike for little feet. Until seeing your post, I hadn’t thought of that for years.
The Collingwood branch library was my inspiration for years. It was at the end of our street, so maybe my mother took me there. Certainly after we moved to 49th Avenue, I would ride my bike there. I would walk along the shelves of fiction looking for titles and covers that appealed to me, sometimes asking the librarian for suggestions, despite my shyness. I was glad to see that it was still there when I last drove by. Such an inauspicious building to hold so many dreams!