BC Electric

Frank Gowen’s Vancouver

by Eve Lazarus on August 21, 2020

Frank Gowen was born in England in 1877. He moved to Vancouver in 1913 and worked as a photographer until his death in 1946.

Frank Gowen’s photo of 1913 Vancouver. Courtesy Chris Stiles

Chris Stiles kindly sent me this fabulous panoramic photo that she and husband Alan found when they were going through some personal effects of Alan’s father recently.

“My husband’s dad, Roy Stiles was assistant fire chief for the Vancouver Fire Department for many years. He passed in March of 2019, at almost 94 years of age,” she wrote. “I know you love the old houses of Vancouver and there are a number of them visible in this photograph.”

Georgia Street from Hornby, Frank Gowen photo. Uno Langmann Family Collection of B.C. Photographs

Heritage buildings:

I do love old buildings, and Chris has identified quite a few of them:

Right foreground building is the Waghorn, Gwynn & Co. Stock Brokers, Real Estate, and Loans. 517 Granville Street
The Alcazar Hotel, on Dunsmuir & northeast corner Homer. The back of sign is visible on second building to the left and back of second row of houses.
Baker & Co. Signs, 346 Dunsmuir (on the left and behind three houses about in the centre of photograph)
To the centre right, behind houses is the North West Biscuit Co. Ltd. at 579 Richards.
On the far left edge, midway up the photo is the Van-loo Cigar Factory (formerly The Stettler Cigar Factory) 140 Water Street

And look at how the second Hotel Vancouver just dominates the city’s skyline.

Seaplane crashing through West End roof, 1918. Frank Gowen photo. CVA Air P31

Early Vancouver:

Chris thinks that Roy’s parents Walter and Daisy Stiles bought the panoramic photo from Frank Gowen shortly after he took it in 1913. It would make it one of Gowen’s earliest photos taken soon after he moved to Vancouver.

Walter Stiles worked for BC Electric from 1910 to 1954.

Hollow Tree, Stanley Park. Frank Gowen photo, 1920s. Uno Langmann Family Collection of B.C. Photographs

I went to Frank Gowen’s Vancouver 1914 – 1931 by Fred Thirkell and Bob Scullion to find out more about him. Gowen arrived in Vancouver from Brandon, Manitoba in 1913 and they settled first in Burnaby. While he was establishing himself as a photographer specializing in postcards, he moonlighted as a jitney driver (this was like an early Uber service where people used their private cars to give rides—only back then a trip cost five to 10 cents).

The no longer working Lost Lagoon Fountain. Frank Gowen photo, Uno Langmann Family Collection of B.C. Photographs

Stanley Park Photographer:

In 1916, he became the official Stanley Park photographer and took many of those posed photos that you see outside Hollow Tree and Prospect Point. His postcards sold in the thousands.

There is a great collection of his photos at UBC and the Uno Langmann Collection

The Grosvenor Hotel, 840 Howe Street (1913-1983). Frank Gowen photo, Uno Langmann Family Collection of B.C. Photographs

Gowen’s range was extensive. He took everything from hotels and ships to piers and beaches, train stations and parks and shot all over British Columbia.

English Bay. Frank Gowen photo, courtesy CVA Be P93

Chris Stiles also has a great family history. Her father, Fritz Autzen was a baker from Germany who ran the Hippocampus on Denman Street in the 1960s. Fritz was also an avid photographer and his story and photos appear in my new book Vancouver Exposed coming this fall.

Tags Alcazar Hotel, BC Electric, Chris Stiles, Daisy Stiles, Frank Gowen, Roy Stiles, Second Hotel Vancouver, Stanley Park, Uno Langmann, Walter Stiles

The incredible photography of Selwyn Pullan

by Eve Lazarus on August 16, 2014

Selwyn Pullan, photographer — Selwyn Pullan in his studio, 2008. Kenneth Dyck photo

I’ve been posting pictures of the BC Electric Building on Facebook this week, but I haven’t posted this one—it’s on the back of Sensational Vancouver and in the chapter on West Coast Modern. The photo was shot by Selwyn Pullan in 1957, the same year BC Electric completed this ground breaking piece of architecture.

While Ned Pratt and Ron Thom were designing the BC Electric building and other west coast modern architects such as Arthur western living 1961 Erickson and Barry Downs were producing buildings full of glass and angles and natural materials built to expand into spaces in ways unseen before, it was Selwyn Pullan who captured their vision.

Selwyn studied under Ansel Adams at the Art Center School in Los Angeles, and after moving back to Vancouver he became a sought after commercial photographer, working for magazines such as Western Homes and Living, Macleans and Architectural Digest.

“I just look at the house and photograph it,” he told me. “I don’t have any preconceptions when I photograph, it’s a journalistic assignment not a photographic one.”

Many of Selwyn’s photos are in my book, and so is he. He’s over 90 now and still living in the North Vancouver house he bought in 1952. Pullan asked Fred Hollingsworth to design a carport. The finished structure looks more like a plane than a garage, and that’s interesting not just from an architectural point of view, but because he and Hollingsworth used to make model airplanes together as teens. Pullan says Hollingsworth still does.

Selwyn Pullan's studio. Selwyn Pullan photo, 1960 — Selwyn Pullan’s studio. Selwyn Pullan photo, 1960

In 1960 when Pullan needed a multi-purpose studio and darkroom for his growing photographing business, he sought out Hollingsworth again. Rather then add another room to the house, the architect created a covered passageway that led from the house and flowed down the slope of the property. He designed a two-level studio with floor-to-ceiling windows and concrete floors that blend seamlessly with the landscape.It was here in 1969 that Selwyn shot the paintings for Lawren Harris’s book, from the artist’s early days with the Group of Seven through to his abstract period in Vancouver. Selwyn refused to shoot them anywhere except his studio and only when he was alone. The paintings would be trucked to his studio in batches, taken away and a new group brought in. Harris, who lived on ritzy Belmont Avenue in Vancouver, died the following year. Cover image by DRK Design. To see more of his work, see Selwyn Pullan: Photographing Mid-Century West Coast Modern, Douglas & McIntyre, 2012.

Tags Ansel Adams, Architectural Digest, Art Center School, Arthur Erickson, Barry Downs, BC Electric, Fred Hollingsworth, Lawren Harris, Ned Pratt, Ron Thom, Selwyn Pullan, Sensational Vancouver, Western Homes and Living

Villa Russe

by Eve Lazarus on November 22, 2011

Looking for a mansion on the right side of town? 3390 The Crescent is on the market for $31.9 million. I’m guessing the owners are receptive to a lower bid, since as John Mackie points out, it was up for sale last year for only $17.9 million.

1922 Beaux Arts mansion — 3390 The Crescent

Wondering what one gets for $30 odd million in Vancouver? According to the real estate blurb that would be 10,000+ square feet of house nestled on an acre of land with the obligatory grand entry and sweeping staircase, as well as massive living room, five fireplaces, a master bedroom with not one, but three dressing rooms and quarters for the staff, who you’ll need to cook, clean, mow and provide maps to find your way to the games room, gym and cellar.

What it doesn’t say is that the stately mansion has a great story.

I wrote about this house and the Grauer family in At Home with History. The house was built in 1922 for Misak Yremavitch Aviazoff, a local money man and arts lover, and his wife Aileen. The Aivazoff’s loved to entertain and counted Grand Duke Alexander, Serge Rachmanioff, Prince Obelinsky among their guests.

Aviazoff, who is listed in the city directories as president of New Method Coal and Supplies, did not do well in the Depression. He and Aileen bumped around to different Shaughnessy addresses, likely short-term rentals, and by 1938 Aileen is a landlady at a West End apartment building.

H.A. Wallace, the ship builder bought the house from the Aivazoffs and lived there until 1946, when it changed hands again and BC Electric became the owner and Albert Edward (Dal) Grauer, head of the company and his family moved in.

3390 The Crescent — The Grauer Children in front of Villa Russe, 1958

Sherry Grauer was eight when she and three siblings moved into the house, which she describes as “Mediterranean”. Sherry, now an artist living on Vancouver Island, says the house only had three bedrooms (it now has six), so her father built an addition on the back and a pool with a cabana designed by family friend Arthur Erickson.

Sherry’s mother painted portraits and flowers and she remembers going upstairs to bed while her father played Chopin or Schubert on the piano.

By 1961, Dal Grauer, dying with leukemia, continued to battle the BC Government over its decision to take over the company (now BC Hydro). The government announced the takeover the day of Grauer’s funeral. Still, he managed to kick back from the grave. Sherry says her father incorporated his $2 million plus estate into a family company in another province and legally stiffed the government for estate taxes. “And that made Wacky Bennett very cross,” she said. Dal also left his stamp on the BC Electric Building (now the Elektra), built in 1957, and the Dal Grauer Substation.

John Mackie’s article: https://www.vancouversun.com/news/Vancouver+mansion+sale+million/5735598/story.html

See realtor’s listing at https://www.ecorealtyinc.ca/listing?id=259090654

Tags 3390 The Crescent, Aileen Aviazoff, Arthur Erickson, BC Electric, Dal Grauer, Grand Duke Alexander, Misak Yremavitch Aviazoff, New Method Coal and Supplies, Prince Obelinsky, Serge Rachmanioff, Sherry Grauer, Villa Russe

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