Do you remember the fountain at Lonsdale Quay? It had sails on top of a tiled base of green and blue swirls and whales and octopus and starfish. When my kids were small it was the best part of a visit next to ice cream and the ball room.
“White Winds” the fountain, was created in 1985 by Gerald Gladstone. The metal sculptures in the centre represented sails in a nod to the boats in Burrard Inlet.
The fountain broke down in 2020 and the cost was $300,000 to fix it. So we didn’t. Now the only thing left to remember it by, is a round piece of asphalt used to patch the hole in the concrete.
Superyacht:
I was thinking of the fountain this week as I was standing where it used to be trying to take a photo of Dennis Washington’s $200 million yacht. Washington heads up the US-based Washington Companies which owns Seaspan, the former Headquarters of Cates Tugs, and where he parks Superyacht alongside the market. According to Forbes Magazine, he has a net worth of $7.8 billion and ranks #448 in global wealth.
The problem was I couldn’t fit all of Superyacht’s 95 metres into the photo, which is roughly the same length as a Canadian football field. I had to climb up the red staircase under the Q to get a look at the helicopter pad and then walk to the pier below the Polygon Gallery to get the whole Superyacht in one photo. The Seabus that was coming into the Quay behind it, looked like a small ferry.
Ferry No. 5:
Speaking of ferries, if you’ve lived on the North Shore long enough you might remember the Seven Seas Restaurant that was docked in roughly the same spot as Superyacht.
It was moored at the foot of Lonsdale from 1959 to 2002. The restaurant had a crazy 15-metre neon sign easily visible from East Vancouver, and it was the place where locals had their first drink, got engaged, and ate at the city’s biggest seafood buffet.
Before it was a restaurant, the Seven Seas was Ferry No. 5—the last of the North Vancouver ferries. Ridership went into steady decline as people chose to drive and Ferry No. 5 made its final run across the Inlet on August 30, 1958.
When the ferry service ended, the City of North Vancouver sold No. 5 to restauranteur Harry Almas who owned the King Neptune Seafood Restaurant in New Westminster. Almas paid $12,000 which included a five-year lease for the waterfront lot. He then spent ten times the purchase price converting the car deck into two dining rooms and a kitchen. Almas kept the two wheelhouses on the upper deck and the ship’s funnel.
The ship’s heritage significance was recognized on the City of North Vancouver’s Heritage Inventory in 1994. But the vessel was aging, and the cost of repairs became a court battle between the Almas family and the City. It ended in federal court in 2001. The following year the restaurant was dismantled, towed to Vancouver Pile Driving at the foot of Brooksbank Avenue, and demolished.
The neon sign, it seems, was lost to history.
Attessa V:
According to the SuperYachtFan website which reports on such things, Washington’s yacht was built in 2010, christened the Palladium and its first owner was a Russian Oligarch.
There are no names like My Way or Destiny or Carpe Diem indelicately scrawled across the side or the bow (three of the most popular names favoured by billionaires according to Boat International Magazine). Washington’s yacht just has an elegant AV on its funnel. The A stands for Attessa and the V stands for five, because there are already Attessa’s one, two, three and four out in the world.
SuperYachtFan pegs annual running costs at between $10 and $20 million a year, which includes the 33 crew members needed to drive the boat, clean the pool, maintain the gym equipment, cook the meals, set up the cinema, sweep the helipad, and otherwise keep AV afloat.
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Nice story.
Good story on the Seven Seas. We dined there in a time when we could drive over from Vancouver easily, park with no problem. It was an okay place, but the service wasn’t that great. Jell-O for dessert… Was sad to see it go though.
Dennis Washington also owns his own luxury play train. Not sure if it’s still intact, but did make a showing up here several years ago and ran on the SRY line for a special tour. In speaking to those handling the train, nobody was allowed to walk inside the coaches without protective booties over their shoes… This was at a time when he still owned Montana Rail Link, and the SRY. Nice to have big money like that…
I didn’t know about the train! Thanks for stopping by
He did pretty well with the Catamaran ferries fiasco.
So interesting that you talking about the Super yacht Attessa! At this very moment as am writing to you I just saw it pass-by our place in West Van, and she’s starting to head south. Such a beautiful ship she is, and what a way to travel.
Thanks for another interesting local story.
I worked at the Seven Seas for 3 months when I was 20. That was all I could stand because some of the workers (men) there and Harry were harassing me. This was about 1976. The majority of the staff were lovely though. I especially liked the kitchen staff, all immigrant women from various places in the world. They were very good to me and I learned a lot from them.
Sometime in the 1990s I attended a B.C. Transit award dinner for bus drivers. About twenty of us dined at the Seven Seas, and it was fun to be on an old North Van ferry. The seafood buffet was quite the spread, and we all enjoyed the evening. I still remember some of the conversations. When the SeaBus started operations it left the terminal at a higher speed than it does now. The Seven Seas complained about the wake rocking the restaurant, and it wasn’t long before the SeaBus left at a slower pace. The capital “S” on the neon sign is really fun.
Wow! I just saw this yacht/ship/amazing wonder on Fri Aug 29 and was struck with its beauty. I had ventured over on the Seabus (hadn’t done so in years even tho I live here). I wondered what that gorgeous boat was, and thanks to you, now I know! I just love that thing but it’s a bit out of my range. I had such a longing to go on it…I went over to visit the “new” North Shore museum just steps away. My dad and my grandpa worked in the Wallace Shipyards in the 1940s helping to build the war ships. I need to visit the archives next to see if I can find out more about which ship they would have worked on. My dad was 14 or 15. I was impressed with Monova’s shipyard display in their museum. I also got to walk where the Wallace Shipyards were once located (now restaurants and a spray pool) and my husband researched which ferry dock my dad would have walked to from Cordova St to take the North Shore ferry over; it was at the foot of Main St. The person in the museum didn’t know where it was. So it was a wonderful day for me, and now I know a bit about that gorgeous boat!!!! Thanks for this post.
The North Van ferry dock was actually at the foot of Columbia Street. My grandfather took it to work in the North Vancouver shipyards from his East Vancouver home. My grandfather moved to Vancouver to work in the shipyards after the work ran out in Belfast, Ireland, building the Titanic and the two sister ships – he was a master carpenter.
Great history about the Seven Seas ferry/restaurant.
Remember the resturant well . Your stories about our history are great. Thank you.
Ah another owner of a super yacht Wonder if the guy pays any income tax and what has he done for society lately?
I am a 84 year old former Vancouver resident living past 30 years in cabo san Lucas Mexico. Dennis Washington spends a lot of his winters here and I’ve had the pleasure of watching a few of the Attessa’s sitting out in Medano bay at anchor because they are too big for the dock. I presume he uses it for winter home and a palace for friends and family. I will watch for #5, if she’s heading out, should be here soon.
Regarding the ferry, my first recollection of being on board a boat was with my father going from downtown to north Vancouver. I was about 6.
The Attessa passed by our place in West Van on September 6th and is at this moment arriving in San Francisco. You can see where she is on Vessel Finders. It’s quite the treat watching her go by.
Always sorry when public art is lost esp. when in outdoor spaces. That fountain looked lovely and I’m sure many enjoyed being there over the years. Too bad that it was not valued and deemed worth saving. So it was destroyed. Now the view is of a huge yacht owed by an obscenely wealthy person. The rest of us get patched concrete. How ironic.