Heritage Buildings

Never heard of Manson’s Deep? You’re not alone. It’s one of the deepest points in Howe Sound just off Point Atkinson. It’s also been a burial ground for old sailors since 1941. Manson’s Deep gets its name from Captain Thomas Manson who came to Vancouver from Scotland in 1892. According to an article by Kellsie… Continue reading Vancouver Heritage House Tour and Manson’s Deep

Heritage Vancouver hosted its 16th annual bus tour today, taking people to the buildings, streets and landscapes that the Society believes have the most perilous survival rate. And, it’s not just the mansions—but also schools, churches, streets, and areas—all the things that make a community rich. Not all the buildings are that old either. There’s… Continue reading Heritage Vancouver’s Top 10 Most Endangered Heritage Resources of 2016

This is part four in an occasional series that asks people who work in and around heritage to tell us their favourite buildings and the one that we should never have destroyed. Anne Banner: Anne Banner is the proprietress of Salmagundi, an antiques, oddities and novelties shop located in the J.W.Horne Block.  My favourite existing… Continue reading Heritage Streeters with Anne Banner, Tom Carter, Kerry Gold and Anthony Norfolk

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History If you read my blog regularly, you know that I’m a huge fan of West Coast Modern, and especially of Fred Hollingsworth, an amazing North Vancouver architect who died this year at age 98 after changing the face of architecture. But it wasn’t until I was… Continue reading Fred Hollingsworth’s Sky Bungalow

Continuing on with a series I started earlier this year, I’ve asked a few friends to tell me their favourite Vancouver building and the one they miss the most. Michael Kluckner      Michael is the author of a dozen books. His most recent is Toshiko, a graphic novel set in BC in 1944. He… Continue reading Heritage Streeters with Michael Kluckner, Jess Quan, Lani Russwurm and Lisa Anne Smith

Wandering down Haro Street in Vancouver’s West End, it’s a welcome surprise to come across the West End Guest House, a gorgeous Edwardian nestled in a sea of ugly, non-descript apartment buildings. It’s one of the few houses that managed to survive the apartment blitz of the 1950s when the City of Vancouver removed the… Continue reading West End Guest House: one of the last ones standing

Occasionally it’s nice to celebrate heritage buildings that have survived the bulldozers and are being used in interesting ways. One of my favourites is the eccentric Accommodations by Pillow Suites. Accommodations by Pillow Suites: This eccentric former corner grocery store was built in 1910 near Vancouver City Hall and is a short-term rental suite.  I… Continue reading Vancouver’s top five heritage inns

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History I’m not a huge fan of facadism—the practice of keeping the front of the building and tearing everything else down behind it—but in the case of Skwachays Lodge, it made sense. In 1913, W.T. Whiteway, the same architect who designed the Sun Tower, created a three-storey… Continue reading Skwachays Lodge, Cultural Tourism and Vancouver’s “Gentrifying DTES”

It’s hard to imagine today, but from the 1930s until the mid 1950s there were three daily newspapers—the Vancouver Sun, the Province and the Vancouver News-Herald operating in Vancouver—all independents fighting for market share in a population of less than 350,000. The Vancouver News-Herald called itself “Western Canada’s Largest Morning Herald.” When it was founded… Continue reading From Newspapers to Exotic Escorts: Repurposing old buildings

Green Island is one of 21 lighthouses in B.C. recently granted heritage status. This story is from a chapter on lighthouses that never made it way into Sensational Victoria. “The winter wind whistles down the Portland Canal from Alaska and seas lash away at the tower and the dwellings, shellacking them with ice so thick… Continue reading The Green Island Lighthouse now has Heritage Status

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History I was spending a typical Friday afternoon yesterday poking around the digital files at Vancouver Archives when I found this photo of the Alhambra Theatre. The photo was taken in 1899, the year the theatre first appears in the city directories and it stood at the… Continue reading What the Alhambra Theatre and the Vancouver Stock Exchange have in common

  It may not be the grandest house on the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s tour, but I bet 446 Union Street house is one of the most interesting, at least when it comes to its social history. Story from: Sensational Vancouver Adamo Piovesan built the brick house in 1930 for his wife Maria and their four… Continue reading 446 Union Street

Because May is Asian Heritage Month it seems fitting to run a story about Joy Kogawa. The following is an excerpt from the Legendary Women chapter in Sensational Vancouver. Joy Kogawa’s childhood house is a modest wood-framed bungalow in South Vancouver. There’s really nothing architecturally significant about it except that it’s one of the few original… Continue reading Joy Kogawa’s House

Here are five of my favourite eccentric BC houses that still stand (or did at the time of research). 1. The Hobbit House(s) There are two in Vancouver and one in West Van designed by Ross Lort in the early 40s, and against all odds, all survive. Hobbit house at King Edward and Cambie is now… Continue reading Five Eccentric B.C. Houses

In February heritage men told us their favourite building and the one building we should have saved. To keep the world in balance, I’ve asked the same question of women working in and with heritage—our answers may surprise you. Caroline Adderson: Caroline Adderson is an award-winning Vancouver author  and the person behind Vancouver Vanishes Favourite… Continue reading Heritage Streeters with Caroline Adderson, Heather Gordon, and Eve Lazarus

One of the things I loved most about being a contributor to Vancouver Confidential was working with reporters, bloggers, artists, tour guides, actors, musicians and academics that cut across both decades and demographics. The experience made me realize what a truly diverse group we have working in the local history and heritage space. So just… Continue reading Heritage Streeters (with John Atkin, Aaron Chapman, Jeremy Hood and Will Woods)

The Vogue Theatre opened in April 1941 and was designated as a national historic site in 1993. From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History Dal Richards opened: On April 15, 1941 the Dal Richards Big Band was the opening act for the Vogue Theatre, a combination vaudeville and movie house located on Granville… Continue reading In and out of Vogue: A Vancouver art deco story

If you’re a property owner in Metro Vancouver and looking for relief in this year’s property tax bill, well let’s just say it’s not going to happen. For property owners living in one of the priciest regions of the country—the West Coast real estate market keeps going up—and so does your bill. The good news… Continue reading The Top 10 Most Expensive Houses in BC: nine are in Vancouver

This is an excerpt from Sensational Vancouver. Eleanor Lum Wayne Avery knew nothing about the history of his house until one day he saw an elderly Chinese woman peering through his front room window. He invited her inside and discovered that she was Eleanor (Yip) Lum, and that she had been born in one of… Continue reading Meet Nellie Yip Quong

A couple of weeks ago, Judy Graves, Tom Carter and I took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Orpheum Theatre. The “new” Orpheum was designed in 1927 by Marcus Priteca, a Seattle-based architect who fashioned the theatre in a Spanish renaissance style and gave it an opulent air with some sleight of hand tricks. For instance,… Continue reading The Orpheum Theatre and a conversation with Paul Merrick