Badminton Hotel

Victory Square: What was there before?

by Eve Lazarus on January 15, 2022

Heritage Vancouver released their annual top 10 watch list last month (for 2021), and rather than look at endangered buildings, they have focused on space. I was interested to find Victory Square on the list—or rather not the square itself, but the buildings that surround it, some of which date back to the 1800s. The challenge, according to Heritage Vancouver, is to find the sweet spot between heritage retention and the need for low income housing.

This story is from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

The Arcade was a wooden building containing 13 shops (right of frame). It was replaced by the Dominion Building in 1909. Vancouver Archives, 1898

What a lot of people don’t know is that before Victory Square was Victory Square and home to the cenotaph, it was a happening part of the city known as Government Square, because it was the site of the first provincial courthouse.

Victory Square and the Flack Block, 1900. Vancouver Archives photo

The Original Vancouver Court House:

The impressive domed building was operational by 1890 and was the first major building outside of Gastown. It was quickly apparent that it was too small for our growing city, and within a few years it was given a large addition with a grand staircase and portico facing Hastings Street.

Vancouver’s original courthouse ca.1893. Vancouver Archives

Other buildings started to spring up around the Courthouse. In 1898, architect William Blackmore (Badminton Hotel, Strathcona Elementary) designed a building for Thomas Flack who had made his fortune in the Klondike and wanted to see an impressive building bear his name.

Military and Religion:

The original courthouse lasted just 20 years. It was demolished when the new law courts opened on West Georgia Street in 1912. The square, which is actually a triangle, is bounded by Hastings, Cambie, Pender and Hamilton Streets. It didn’t remain empty for long. By 1914, it was filled with a military tent, used to recruit soldiers to fight in the First World War. Then, in 1917, up went the Evangelistic Tabernacle.

The Evangelistic Tabernacle under construction, 1917. Vancouver Archives

The Cenotaph:

The church too was short lived. The Southams, owners of the Province Newspaper, which was housed across the street, donated funds to develop a park, which was then renamed Victory Square. By 1924, enough public money had been raised to build the cenotaph designed by G.L. Sharp. Sharp had the 30-foot cenotaph constructed from granite from Nelson Island.

The inscription facing Hastings Street reads: “Their name liveth for evermore. Facing Hamilton it says “Is it nothing to you.” And Facing Pender Street: “All ye that pass by.”

Heritage Vancouver Top 10 2021

Pandemic spaces
Food Hub near Joyce Station
False Creek South
Reconciliation and the Fairmont Building
Mount Pleasant
800 Block on Granville Street
Kingsway
555 West Cordova Street
Victory Square
Neighbourhood Businesses

Tags Badminton Hotel, Cenotaph, Dominion Building, Evangelistic Tabernacle, Flack Block, G.L. Sharp, Heritage Vancouver, Thomas Flack, William Blackmore

The Manor House on Howe Street

by Eve Lazarus on June 13, 2020

The Standard Life Insurance building has been at the corner of Howe and Dunsmuir in Vancouver since 1975. It was the third building on the site. In 1889, it was occupied by a hotel.

For more stories like this one, check out Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

As 14-storey office blocks go, there’s really nothing wrong with the Standard Life Insurance building at the southwest corner of Howe and Dunsmuir Streets. It’s got a bit of a mid-century vibe about it, likely because it was designed by McCarter Nairne, the architects behind the Canada Post building on West Georgia. It certainly fits in with its surroundings, that intersection has similar looking office blocks on the other corners and the boxy Pacific Building opposite.

Manor House in the 1890s, 603 Howe Street. CVA SGN 1461

1889:

If you were walking past in the summer of 1889 though, you would have found the spanking new Manor House. It was wood framed with three stories (with a fourth below street level) a wrap around balconies and four turrets. A ten by ten foot tower gave guests a drop dead view of the fledging city, the Burrard Inlet and the North Shore mountains. It was steps above the Gastown hotels, and less expensive than the first Hotel Vancouver that sat up the hill on the corner of Granville and Georgia (where Nordstrom’s is today).

Looking north from Dunsmuir between Howe and Granville in 1909 (Manor house on left) CVA Van SC P45 (see high res: Vancouver Archives)

The Badminton Hotel:

By 1898, the hotel had new management and a new name. It stayed the Badminton Hotel until 1924 when it became the Badminton Apartments with 45 three-, two-, and one-bedroom rental units until it was demolished in March 1936.

Shown shortly before it was demolished in 1936, the Badminton had shed its balconies but was a still regal looking building not yet 50 years old. CVA Hot N2

Replaced in 1936:

Five months later the Vancouver Sun and Province wrote stories about the exciting new building that replaced it—a two-storey reinforced concrete structure–with five retail stores on the ground floor. Two stores fronted Howe Street and three faced Dunsmuir. One corner was designed specifically for the Vancouver Mortgage Corporation. It had less than half the number of rental units as the former building on the second floor, and was called Derek Court after the son of owner Victoria-based William Todd.

“A very special feature is the radio aerial for each apartment providing short and long reception,” wrote a Vancouver Sun reporter.

Derek Court, 603 Howe Street. CVA Str N282, August 1936

Businesses included Reid’s Jewelry, Drainie Travel, Calhoun’s Hats, the Londonderry shop and Harrison Galleries. Its most famous tenant was Ginger Coote, the bush pilot whose airline became part of CP Air.

Derek Court lasted even less time than the Badminton.

The Standard Life Building at the southwest corner of Howe and Dunsmuir. CVA 779 W05.12, 1981 (note the similar view to the above 1936 photo)

In 1975 Standard Life Assurance bought the property and Derek Court came down with just “five men, a crane, cats and trucks and a 2,500 pound wrecking ball.”*

*Vancouver Sun, February 17, 1975

Tags Badminton Apartments, Badminton Hotel, Derek Court, Manor House, McCarter Nairne, Standard Life Insurance, Vancouver Mortgage Corporation, William Todd

Our Missing Hotel Heritage: What were we thinking?

by Eve Lazarus on August 8, 2015

The much lamented—and never should have come down–second Hotel Vancouver should have the number one spot on any much missed heritage building list, but I’d argue that the Devonshire should be a close second. When it comes to hotels, we’ve pulled down a lot of them. Here’s my Top 7 list of downtown hotels missing from our landscape.

Second Hotel Vancouver

1. The Second Hotel Vancouver (1916-1949)

Built in 1916 and pulled down just 33 years later to make way for a parking lot, this was one of the most elegant and ornate buildings we ever destroyed. Its eventual replacement (the former Sears building, Pacific Centre), is to put it mildly, disappointing.

The Devonshire Hotel, West Georgia, CVA LGN 1060 ca.1925

2. The Devonshire (1923-1981)

The Devonshire was originally designed as an apartment building and sat between the Hotel Georgia and the Georgia Medical Dental Building. There’s a great story from 1951 that goes when Louis Armstrong and his All Stars were kicked out of the Hotel Vancouver they walked across the street and were given rooms in the Devonshire. Supposedly Duke Ellington, Lena Horne and the Mills Brothers wouldn’t stay anywhere else.

3. The Glencoe Lodge (1906-1932)

The Glencoe Lodge (also known as the Hotel Belfred) was built or “assembled” as a residential hotel by sugar baron B.T. Rogers, and as Heather Gordon notes was managed by Jean Mollison, who was known as the “grand Chatelaine.” It sat at the corner of West Georgia and Burrard, and some well known guests included Lord Strathcona, W.H. Malkin, a former mayor and wealthy grocer, and Alvo von Alvensleben.

4. Manor House/Badminton Hotel 1889-1936

As noted at Past Tense, the Manor House was one of the earliest buildings constructed west of Granville Street. Designed by William Blackmore, it sat at the southwest corner of Dunsmuir (603 Howe Street). For details see Glen Mofford’s page.

5. Hotel Elysium (1911-1970s)

As Michael Kluckner notes in Vancouver Remembered, when it opened on April Fool’s Day, 1911, the Elysium was a good building built in the wrong part of town. Located at 1140 West Pender, it was converted into suites by C.B.K. Van Norman in 1943 and renamed Park Plaza.

Alcazar Hotel, ca.1955 Jan de Haas photo, courtesy Wiebe de Haas

6. Alcazar Hotel (1912-1982)

The Alcazar Hotel hung in for 70 years at 337 Dunsmuir, before being taken out in the early 1980s and eventually became the BC Hydro building. According to Changing Vancouver, the Alcazar featured 1940s murals by Jack Shadbolt in the dining room.

7. York Hotel (1911-1968)

The York Hotel sat at 790 Howe Street at the corner of Robson. According to Changing Vancouver it was built as an annex for the Hotel Vancouver, and its purpose was to maintain a CPR hotel presence while the second Hotel Vancouver was built. And, yes it was replaced by the Pacific Centre Mall eyesore, which took out so many great heritage buildings.

For more posts see: Our Missing Heritage

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