Every Place Has a Story

A short history of the 2400 Motel

the_title()

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 fell in love with the 2400 Motel on Kingsway 20 years ago when I was writing  Frommer’s With Kids Vancouver. 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.

2400 Kingsway, oil on canvas, private Collection Vancouver, by Will Rafuse, 2018
Endangered list:

The last time I wrote about the 2400 Motel was in June 2011, shortly after it made Heritage Vancouver’s Top 10 Endangered hit list. According to a Statement of Significance prepared in 2007 the auto court was the last and best example of post-war car culture. “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 3.5-acre site in 1989 as part of the proposed Norquay Village neighbourhood centre. But the plan lacked any heritage retention, and the building was not and is still not on the heritage inventory.

Courtesy Heritage Vancouver
Opened in 1946:

Built in 1946 when the car was king, the motel has seen tourists from the States, retired couples from BC Interior and Alberta and loads of families over the last 75 years.

In 1966, the Grateful Dead played at Jerry Kruz’s dancehall The Afterthought for $500. Jerry says, his dad knew the owners of the 2400. The 17-year-old Kruz put Jerry Garcia and the band and Owsley Stanley, their sound guy and more famously, the manufacturer and distributor of their LSD up there. Jerry tells me they left the motel exactly how they found it.

Courtesy Jerry Kruz
Bomb plot:

In November 1999, the 2400 received worldwide media attention when an Al-Qaida terrorist named Ahmed Ressum (millennium bomber) built a bomb in one of the cottages. He planned to blow up LA’s International Airport that New Year’s Eve. In 2001, 21-year-old Kevin Peters was murdered there in a drug deal gone bad.

Mostly, though good things happen at the 2400. The motel has been the backdrop for movies and television shows including X-files, Bates Motel, Motive, Super Natural and a Bryan Adams music video.

Sanctuary:

The 2400 continues to offer reasonable accommodation for travelers (I could have booked a pet friendly one-bedroom suite with kitchen for $129 Friday night). Over the years, it’s also become a sanctuary for people in distress. In 2006, it provided emergency housing for families and individuals who were forced out of their apartment building after a leaking roof. In 2016, it became a haven for more than a dozen Syrian refugees. At the outbreak of the pandemic it housed people recovering from Covid-19, and sometime in the near future it will provide a roof for people waiting on the long list for permanent housing in Vancouver.

Related:

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

2400 Motel: Vancouver’s 10th most endangered heritage site

the_title()

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.

2400 motel on Kingsway
Will Rafuse painting
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.

Related:

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.