Alvo von Alvensleben

The Hunting Lodge on Somerset Street in North Vancouver

by Eve Lazarus on February 24, 2013

The house on Somerset Street in North Vancouver was built in 1912 as a hunting lodge for Alvo von Alvensleben.

The story of Alvo von Alvensleben and the hunting lodge on Somerset appears in At Home with History: the secrets of Vancouver’s heritage houses:

A couple of weeks ago I was taking photos of this house on Somerset when Bob Findlay politely asked me what I was doing skulking around in his bushes. Fortunately, Bob, the current owner, has researched his house’s social history and kindly invited me inside to take a look around.

The house was built in 1912 as a hunting lodge for Alvo von Alvensleben. One of the first houses built in the area, it sits on a high piece of property overlooking Burrard Inlet. A century ago, it would have looked like it was carved out of the forest, with a grand wrap-around veranda and a circular carriage drive.

Son of a Count:

In 1912, Alvensleben was at the top of his career. The son of a German count, he came to Vancouver in 1904 with $4 in his pocket and dreams of finding gold in the Wild West. He was about 10 years too late, and ended up fishing for salmon until he made enough money to speculate in property.

He was wildly successful. Before WW1 he brought millions of dollars of German investment into BC. His family home is now part of the Crofton Girl’s School in Kerrisdale. He developed the Wigwam Inn into a luxury resort, financed the Dominion Building on Hastings Street, and he owned huge tracts of land all over BC, including Pitt Meadows.

Branded a Spy:

Like many land speculators Alvo went broke in 1913. While he was out of the country the following year, war broke, rumours abounded that he was a spy and he couldn’t return to Canada. The federal government confiscated everything he owned, and what’s really fascinating is that you can still see a bit of the red wax on the windows of his Somerset House when the government impounded the house.

I’ve written about Alvensleben and this house in At Home with History, and the history of the house gets interesting again in 1931 when the parents of actor John Drainie rented it for a few years. Orson Welles called him the greatest radio actor in the world. Young John was self-taught, and in a biography written by his daughter Bronwyn, she says one Christmas when her father was about 15 he directed a production of Twelfth Night in the living room.

The Gundry’s bought the house in 1945 and the family lived there until 1972. Mr. Gundry was a psychiatrist, and their daughter Fran was an archivist in Victoria. She told me that she spent years searching for secret tunnels but never found any.

Senator Ray Perrault and his wife Barbara, a former City of North Vancouver councillor lived here from 1974 until 1995.

Spy Story:

My favourite story of the house comes from Don Luxton, who has connected it to another of Alvensleben’s properties on Harris Road in Pitt Meadows, and to Baron Carl von Mackensen’s house in Port Kells. Don says that after war broke out there were rumours that the Pitt Meadows house, the Somerset Street House and von Mackensen’s Port Kell’s house were used by the Germans to pass secret signals by mirror. A century later it’s hard to imagine–and it’s a long distance between the three houses–but it’s possible. They did find a secret radio room in the turret of the Port Kells house, now the Baron’s Manor Pub.

One of the most significant houses in Pitt Meadows in 1912 — 14776 Harris Road, Pitt Meadows

Tags 14776 Harris Road, 437 Somerset Street, Alvo von Alvensleben, Baron von Mackensen, Crofton Girl's School, Dominion Building, Don Luxton, Pitt Meadows, Spy House, Wigwam Inn

The Mulligan Affair and other BC characters

by Eve Lazarus on September 25, 2012

Alvo von Alvensleben not only has a name you couldn’t make up, he’s one of the most fascinating characters in BC’s history. For some mysterious reason he has never rated a biography, but there is a chapter dedicated to him in my book At Home with History. I was just browsing my bookshelf and thinking what an interesting bunch of men and women BC has produced. Here are five men that I wish I’d met.

Angelo Branca, judge (1903-1984)

Angelo Branca grew up at 343 Prior Street with parents Teresa and Filippo, two brothers John and Joseph and sister Anne. As a lawyer he represented the madams and bootleggers of the East End and eventually became a BC Supreme Court judge. Filippo ran the grocery store on Main Street and he and Peter Tosi and Sam Minichiello were the three biggest importers of California grapes in the area. My favourite story comes from Ray Culos whose grandfather was Sam Minichiello, and says that the joke in the neighbourhood was that wine was a family affair. Filippo would sell the grapes to the bootleggers, his son John, a detective with the dry-squad would arrest them, and his other son, Angelo, would get them off in court.

Moore, Vincent. Gladiator of the Courts: Angelo Branca. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 1981.

Samuel Maclure, architect (1860-1929)

There are several books about Samuel Maclure, but the one by Janet Bingham is my favourite. I found my copy in a James Bay second hand bookstore/coffee shop and thought I’d won the lottery. Born just outside New Westminster, Maclure worked as a telegrapher in Vancouver before spending a year at art school and turning to architecture. Maclure had considerable design range and his legacy can be seen in hundreds of buildings around British Columbia. His buildings include the flamboyant Charles Murray Queen Anne house in New Westminster (1890), Gabriola on Davie Street (1901) and Hatley Castle in 1925.

Bingham, Janet. Samuel Maclure Architect. Horsdal and Schubart, 1985.

Walter Mulligan, chief of police (1904-1987)

At 42, Walter Mulligan was the youngest chief of police and the most corrupt. By 1955, he had 700 people under his command in a culture where cops routinely took bribes from bookies, bootleggers and hardened criminals. That was the year he was caught with his hand in the till after a former Province reporter broke the story about epidemic police corruption. Things unravelled quickly when detective sergeant Len Cuthbert tried to kill himself with his service revolver. He survived and told a police inquiry that he and Mulligan doubled their salaries with bribes. Apart from a girlfriend who lived in Strathcona, Mulligan had a fairly modest existence. He and his wife lived in an ordinary bungalow at 1155 West 50^th Avenue. Partway through the police inquiry he moved to California and worked in a nursery. Later he became a bus dispatcher and retired to Oak Bay, where he died at 83.

Macdonald, Ian & O’Keefe, Betty. The Mulligan Affair: Heritage House Publishing, 1997.

Francis Rattenbury, architect (1867-1935)

In 1892, 25-year-old Francis Rattenbury won a competition to design the Parliament Buildings over 60 other architects. Before long he had a slew of buildings after his name including the Empress Hotel, the Crystal Gardens, the CPR Steamship Building and the Vancouver Court House. In 1898, he stunned Victoria’s society by marrying Florence Eleanor Nunn, the adopted daughter of a boarding-house keeper. Gradually, things unraveled. In 1923, with his career and marriage crumbling, Rattenbury met Alma Pakenham, a young divorcee. They married and moved to Bournemouth, England, where by all accounts Rattenbury should have died in obscurity. Instead Alma took up with the 18-year-old chauffeur, George Stoner. In a fit of jealousy, George bashed Rattenbury to death in 1935. Both Alma and George were tried for murder, Alma was acquitted, but after hearing George would hang, she promptly stabbed herself to death, fell into a river and drowned. George later had his death sentence overturned.

Reksten, Terry. Rattenbury. Victoria: Sono Nis Press, 1978.

LD Taylor, serial mayor (1857-1946)

LD Taylor is the most elected mayor in Vancouver’s history, winning nine elections, losing seven, and serving eight terms between 1910 and 1934. He looks like a nerdy little man in his trademark red tie and owlish glasses, but he was actually a bigamist and flamboyant risk taker. In 1905, he bought the Vancouver World newspaper from Sara McLagan, sister of Samuel Maclure and built the Sun Tower. LD supported an eight-hour work day and women’s suffrage, and during his watch he oversaw the opening of YVR and the Burrard Street bridge. He had a relaxed approach to gambling, bootlegging and prostitution. He once told a reporter that he didn’t believe that it was the mayor’s job to make Vancouver a “Sunday school town.”

Francis, Daniel. Mayor Louis Taylor and the Rise of Vancouver. Arsenal Pulp Press 2004.

I haven’t forgotten our women. I’ll be looking at five strong women who crashed through barriers and put their stamp on our province in very different ways.

Tags Alvo von Alvensleben, Angelo Branca, At Home with History, Betty O'Keefe, Daniel Francis, Francis Rattenbury, Ian Macdonald, Janet Bingham, LD Taylor, Samuel Maclure, Terry Reksten, Vincent Moore, Walter Mulligan

The Dominion Building

by Eve Lazarus on March 25, 2012

Update: The Dominion Building sold to Toronto-based Allied Properties Real Estate Investment Trust in October 2021. It had been in the Cohen family since 1943 (they operated Army and Navy until last year). It won’t surprise you to know that the 1910 building is haunted. Tenants have heard ghostly footsteps on the spiral stairs and some claim to have seen a ghost hovering about there….

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

Eve Lazarus inside the Dominion Building, 2020. Arlen Redekop photo, Vancouver Sun

John Shaw Helyer:

A few weeks ago I was standing on the 11th floor of the Dominion Building looking down its spiral staircase and thinking about architect John Shaw Helyer.

Helyer designed the 1910 building and then supposedly committed suicide by throwing himself down those same stairs at the building’s grand opening. It’s quite a story, it’s just not true. Helyer died from a stroke in 1919.

Dominion Building, Vancouver Archives, 1969

But just because that’s an urban myth, it doesn’t mean the building hasn’t its own great story. For starters, this overdressed red brick and yellow terra cotta structure with its oddly shaped beaux-arts roof comes from a time when architectural sculpture helped shape Vancouver. One writer called it a 19th century Parisian townhouse that should be one storey high, stretched up into an eccentric skyscraper.

Eve Lazarus, Arlen Redekop photo, Vancouver Sun, 2020

Once the heart of Vancouver:

It’s this eccentricity that I love about the building, that and the way it dominates the corner of Hastings and Cambie. It’s a reminder that this part of the city was once the heart of Vancouver. The Woodward’s building to the east, a couple of newspapers and department stores within walking distance, and the original law courts across the road where Victory Square now sits. We know Victory Square for the Remembrance Day ceremony, but when Mayor Gerry McGeer read the riot act to 4,000 unemployed workers in 1935; it was here where they gathered to protest.

207 Hastings Street, Vancouver — The Dominion Building is now dwarfed by high-rises, but for a short time it was the tallest building in the British Empire. CVA, 1936

Alvo von Alvensleben:

The Dominion Building was financed by Alvo von Alvensleben, the flamboyant son of a German count. In the 10 years he lived here, he brought millions of dollars of German investment into Vancouver. He bought up large tracts of land and houses and he lived at what is now the Crofton Girl’s School. He turned the Wigwam Inn at Indian Arm into a luxury resort.

Before going fabulously broke in 1913, he’d amassed a personal fortune of $25 million. His business interests included mining, forestry and fishing. By the time the Dominion Trust collapsed in 1914, Alvo, reviled as a spy, had grabbed his Canadian born wife and children and fled to Seattle.

Dominion Building:

On October 12, 1914, William Arnold, the vice-president and general manager of the Dominion Trust, killed himself with a shotgun in his Shaughnessy Heights garage.

Alvo von Alvensleben, 1913. Courtesy CVA Port P1082

Prior to its completion, in June 1909 the Vancouver Daily Province reported on the terra cotta in buff and red from Leeds, the polished red granite columns from Aberdeen, a two-storey high main entrance fitted with bronze-plated metal and polished wood, and a 13th floor with a large hall, a dome ceiling, 14 marble toilets and a barber shop.

Jacqui Cohen, president of Army & Navy owns the building. She rents it to the same eclectic bunch that have always been attracted to its look and feel or perhaps drawn by its lower rents. Writers, barristers, accountants, artists, unionists and film directors rub shoulders in the elevators. One elevator has a collage of archival photos dating back to the building’s birth, and the other a Tiko Kerr rendition of a wobbly looking Dominion Building. It’s all quite unnerving after a couple of glasses of wine.

Tags 207 West Hastings Street, Alvo von Alvensleben, Army & Navy, Crofton Girl's School, Dominion Building, Jacqui Cohen, John Shaw Helyer, Mayor Gerry McGeer, Tiko Kerr, Vancouver Daily Province, Victory Square, Wigwam Inn Dominion Trust, William Arnold

Deep Cove Heritage Society

by Eve Lazarus on August 8, 2010

Originally 2nd Street — Gallant Avenue ca.1920

For the past couple of years Janet Pavlik has led the research for a sequel to Echoes Across the Inlet, a book published in 1986 by the Deep Cove Heritage Society. The book covers the early years of the Mount Seymour/Deep Cove area and members felt there was enough interest to produce a second one that starts in the 1950s where the first book left off.

Volunteers have now scanned over 3,700 photos gathered mostly from the scrapbooks of early residents of the area. Pavlik and Pat Morrice have interviewed, recorded and transcribed interviews of more than 60 old-timers who have shared their family histories and memories.

The society has a collection of fascinating old postcards with scenes dating back as far as 1911 and photos of different sizes for sale at reasonable prices. Vickie Boughen, the coordinator, says the most popular photo is a 1950s shot looking down Gallant Avenue—it was 2nd Street then—and displayed in the lobby. “People come in and say ‘that’s the view that I remember,’ and that photo really catches people’s imagination,” she says.

The office shares its space with the Deep Cove Shaw Theatre and art gallery and is on the same site as the first home in the area, built in 1919 by the Moore family. It’s also opposite the heritage Panorama market, built around 1920.

Boughen also has the odd visitor bearing interesting artifacts. Recently a local brought in one of the original chairs from the Wigwam Inn at Indian River to be photographed. The chair quite possibly dates back to 1910 when Alvo von Alvensleben opened up a Luftkurot ( fresh-air resort). In those pre-war days, four different sternwheelers ferried guests up and down from Vancouver. Guests included American millionaires John D. Rockefeller and John Jacob Astor, the year before he died on the Titanic.

The book is still a work in progress and taking much longer than anyone expected, but the intention is to cover the 19 individual neighbourhoods that make up the area east of the Seymour River. Boughen says that the plan is to eventually flip the photos and the interviews onto the Internet.

In the meantime, anyone researching their home’s history will benefit from a visit to the office. Keep in mind that the office is only staffed part-time, so call ahead 604-929-5744 or check www.deepcoveheritage.com before heading out there.

The most requested photograph from the Deep Cove Heritage Society's archives — Gallant Avenue 1950s

Tags Alvo von Alvensleben, Deep Cove Heritage Society, Echoes Across the Inlet, Wigwam Inn

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