The Old Residence ca.1947. Courtesy Crofton House School
The Vancouver Heritage House tour is coming up Sunday June 2, and I haven’t been this excited since Casa Mia was featured in 2014. Don’t get me wrong, the VHF works hard all year to curate a great mix of architectural styles, neighbourhoods and house sizes, but unless you work at, or have a daughter at Crofton House School, you likely won’t get inside the Old Residence.
Alvo von Alvensleben, 1913. Courtesy CVA Port P1082
I was lucky to get a tour when I wrote At Home with History in 2007. What makes the house special for me is that it was owned by Alvo von Alvensleben, one of my favourite historical characters.
Alvensleben arrived in Vancouver in 1904 with $4 in his pocket, but he was hardly a rags-to-riches immigrant. He was the third son of a German count and had the connections, the education, and the charm to convince people like Emma Mumm, the champagne heiress, Bertha Krupp, heir to the Krupp fortune, General von Mackensen, and even the Kaiser himself to open up their bank accounts.
Crofton House ca. 1911
Alvensleben lived in Vancouver less than a decade, yet he was one of the biggest movers and shakers in the city. He brought millions of dollars of German investment into Vancouver and bought up large tracts of land and huge houses. Before going fabulously broke in 1913, he had a personal fortune of around $25 million. His business interests included mining, forestry, and fishing. He financed the Dominion Trust Building, and it was Alvensleben’s capital that built and developed the Wigwam Inn into a luxury resort.
Old Residence, 2019. Courtesy Crofton House School
In 1909, he paid $30,000 for the Kerrisdale house and 20 acres, made a number of additions, and he and his Canadian wife Edith moved in the following year. He bought a string of thoroughbred horses, and by 1912, it took 13 servants to run the household and cater the parties.
The parties stopped at the outbreak of war in 1914. Alvensleben, in Germany at the time, read the signs and stayed in the States. Edith packed up the three kids and everything she could fit into the car and fled to Seattle before the Custodian of Enemy Alien Property stripped all their assets.
You could stare at this ceiling for hours and not see everything. Alvensleben hired Charles Marega the sculptor, and there are gargoyles, bats, rabbits and assorted weird faces in the white plaster of his dining room ceiling. There are mice carved into the sides, owls, frogs and a horse shoe. I think Marega may have even carved his own face into one of the columns. Courtesy Crofton House School
The Kerrisdale house stood empty until 1919 when it sold to Robert J. Cromie, publisher of the Vancouver Sun. The original 20 acres had been reduced to about 13 after the rest had been sold to pay off Alvensleben’s creditors. In 1942, Bernadette Cromie, now a widow, sold the house and property to the Crofton House School for $15,000.
Dining in 1967. Courtesy Crofton House School
Alvensleben died in Seattle. And over half-a-century later, no one really knows if he was a savvy businessman, a shady salesman, or a German James Bond.
Never heard of Manson’s Deep? You’re not alone. It’s one of the deepest points in Howe Sound just off Point Atkinson. It’s also been a burial ground for old sailors since 1941.
Manson’s Deep gets its name from Captain Thomas Manson who came to Vancouver from Scotland in 1892.
Captain Manson. From Westcoast Mariner, 2000
According to an article by Kellsie McLeod*, Manson, himself was buried there in 1946. Part of the service, she writes was the recital of a poem: “Now again, ‘Old Cap,’ you’re with your first love, with the sea. We hear you shout, ‘Stand by and tack, when the Shetland Isles you see.”
Kellsie’s own husband, Ernie McLeod, had his ashes scattered from a tug into Manson’s Deep in 1977. Ernie was a rum runner and appears in Sensational Vancouver “built on rum,” chapter as well as in the ghost chapter because the house that he and Kellsie lived in on Glen Drive was haunted.
Manson’s House. Photo courtesy the Vancouver Heritage Foundation and to Martin Knowles Photo/Media
You may even catch the ghost of Captain Manson on the annual Vancouver Heritage House Tour Sunday. The West 2nd Avenue house is one of nine houses that you’ll be able to get inside. Others include craftsman houses in Kerrisdale and Kitsilano, a Tudor in South Granville, and WilMar on Southwest Marine Drive. WilMar, a 9,000 square-foot 1925 house on a two-acre lot was in the news recently because of redevelopment plans that will hopefully save the old mansion from demolition.
WilMar, 2050 SW Marine Drive. Photo courtesy Heritage Vancouver
If Art Moderne is more to your taste, the Vancouver Heritage Foundation has you covered. You can get a peek inside the Barber Residence—that’s the big white concrete house that sits up on the West 10th Avenue hill near Highbury in Point Grey.
Apparently there is some dispute as to who designed this futuristic looking house (remember this was 1936). My money is on Ross Lort, a super talented architect who is featured in At Home with History. At one point Lort worked with Samuel Maclure, and he designed Maxine’s on Bidwell, G.F. Strong building on Laurel, the Park Lane Apartments on Chilco and Casa Mia on Southwest Marine Drive.
Barber Residence on West 10th. Vancouver Sun photo, 2011
If you need to buy tickets on Sunday, they are $42 or $31.50 with student ID. You can pick them up after 9:00 a.m. at the information booths at 3118 Alberta Street and 2744 Dunbar. These are also two of the tour houses.
In February heritage men told us their favourite building and the one building we should have saved. To keep the world in balance, I’ve asked the same question of women working in and with heritage—our answers may surprise you.
My current favourite house is 3825 West 39th Avenue, built in 1937 by Jack Wood, who was the builder responsible for all the Dunbar castle houses. The house he built for himself next door and featured in the Vancouver Sun at 3815 West 39th Avenue was demolished in early March with almost no reclamation of materials. In the article John Atkin describes the style of the Dunbar castles as “a variation of the French Normandy style popular after World War I. The turret is the grain silo of the original (French) farm house repurposed to make a grand entrance.”
I’d argue that 3825 West 39th is the prettier of the sisters because of the shingle roof and the Tudor elements. Like the Dorothies, which were saved from demolition last year, this house just lights up the street. It seems to exude stories. But not for long. As I was walking past the house this morning, I met a pair of surveyors who confirmed it’s slated for demolition.
Caroline’s runner-up for favourite “house” still standing is 3492 ½ West 35th. It’s a sort of rondavel constructed out of firewood, driftwood, plywood, cinderblocks, tarpaper and stones, with fanciful ornamentation. “I haven’t been inside because, as you can see, no “gurls” are “aloud”.
The one building that never should have been destroyed?
The Beaconsfield at 884 Bute Street is one of a number of West End apartment buildings built in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Every one of these blocks has its own idiosyncrasies and surprises, but I love the Arts and Crafts balconies on the otherwise very-Victorian Beaconsfield, and the way the building integrates with the park-like traffic-calmed block of Bute outside its entrance.
The one building that never should have been destroyed?”
Glencoe Lodge in 1932 CVA Hot N3
The Glencoe Lodge at Georgia and Burrard was a residential hotel built by B.T. Rogers in 1906 and managed by Jean Mollison, who was known a the “grand Chatelaine,” because according to a 1951 newspaper article, she had previously managed the Chateau Lake Louise. Under her guidance, Glencoe Lodge attracted a highly exclusive clientele, even more so than the C.P.R.’s Hotel Vancouver. The Lodge was demolished in the early 1930s, but if it had lasted longer, I can’t help but wonder if it might have become part of a really interesting development on that corner.
Eve Lazarus is the author of Sensational Vancouver and the person behind Every Place has a Story.
Favourite Vancouver building?
With Aaron Chapman on the 2014 VHF heritage house tour
It was a huge thrill to get inside Casa Mia on the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s house tour last year. Built smack in the middle of the Depression from the proceeds of rum running, this old girl still has the nursery with original drawings from Walt Disney artists, it’s own gold leaf covered ballroom with a spring dance floor, a gold swan for a faucet, and art deco his and hers washrooms.
The one building that never should have been destroyed?
Joe Fortes Beach Avenue cottage CVA BuP111
We honoured Joe Fortes with a fountain in Alexandra Park, but how much more awesome would it have been, if we’d kept his house? Not only would it have been one of the oldest structures in Vancouver, it could have made both a great little museum for black history in Vancouver and for the houses that once dotted the water side of Beach Avenue. Instead it went up in flames in 1928.
The hidden courtyard in Chinatown is an enclosure created by the five historic buildings that surround it, two of which were once opium factories. Chinatown is going through a tremendous amount of change right now, but when you walk into the courtyard, it’s as though time has stopped. The courtyard is not accessible to the public, but you can see it if you take the Sins of the City Vice, Dice and Opium Pipes tour.
The one building that never should have been destroyed?
502 Alexander Street, ca.1905 CVA 152-124
502 Alexander St. Aside from the fact that the glass-and-steel monstrosity that replaced it is completely jarring in that particular location, 502 Alexander Street was the second-oldest residence in the city. The historic East End buildings that survived the slum clearances of the 1960s are once again being lost at an astonishing rate, and it is shocking that one of the earliest remaining buildings from the post-fire period was demolished without city council making any effort to preserve it.
Stevie Wilson is a writer and historical researcher specializing in public history. She is a contributor to Vancouver Confidential, and a regular columnist for Scout Magazine
Favourite Vancouver building?
Stevie Wilson at the Bloedel Conservatory
Bloedel Conservatory in Queen Elizabeth Park is a stunning example of 60s modernism (so space-age!) and a fun, interactive place to visit all year round. It also boasts the title of being the first large triodetic dome conservatory in the country, with a design that was influenced heavily by Buckminster Fuller’s larger Biosphere from Expo ’67 in Montreal. It’s definitely one of our city’s most unique structures.
The one building that never should have been destroyed?
The second Hotel Vancouver demolished in 1949. Although the current iteration is beautiful, there was just something so elegant and ornate about the second version – it featured a completely different architectural style in keeping with the sensibilities of the time.
Its location at Georgia and Granville remains one of the biggest intersections in the city, so it’s interesting to imagine how the hotel’s presence might have affected the modern architectural culture of the downtown core if it were still standing.
Casa Mia must be one of Vancouver’s most storied old mansions, and at the moment, one of the most controversial. It’s a late addition to the tour, and a smart move by the owners looking to sway public opinion towards their plan to turn the old girl into a 61-bed home for seniors.
Casa Mia
Casa Mia was built in 1932 for George Reifel, a brewer who made his fortune during U.S. Prohibition. The proceeds from selling rum to thirsty Americans between 1920 and 1933 was so lucrative that he also built a hunting lodge in Delta (now the Reifel bird sanctuary), and with his brother Harry, who built Rio Vista a few doors down, built the Commodore Ballroom, the Vogue and the Studio, all during the Depression.
Hand-painted ceiling at Casa Mia
The Reifels:
Bill Lort told me my favourite story about Casa Mia. Bill’s father Ross Lort designed the hunting lodge and Casa Mia for George Reifel. One Saturday morning in 1931 when Lort was inspecting the property, Reifel pulled up in his long black car. Dressed in a full length coat and fedora and puffing on a cigar, he asked Lort if he’d like some money. Not waiting for an answer, Reifel reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of bills, peeled off a thousand dollar note and handed it to Lort. Bill, the youngest of five kids, was only four at the time, but still remembers his dad arriving home with the bill. “My father came home, showed the thousand dollar bill to my mother who damn near died of heart failure looking at it,” he says. The Lorts’ hid the note under their bed and took turns sitting on it until the bank opened on Monday morning.
Artists from Walt Disney:
Casa Mia is built in the Spanish-style, with nine fireplaces, 10 bathrooms, a sauna, and a ballroom that had the only sprung floor outside of the Commodore. George brought up artists from Walt Disney Studios to hand-paint murals in the playroom.
While Casa Mia is the most impressive house on the tour this year, the VHF has put together a nice range of houses from both the east and west sides of the city. Tickets are $40.
Vancouver Hobbit House has $2.5 million price tag. It’s one of three in Metro Vancouver designed by Ross Lort
It feels a bit like whack a mole. One hobbit house gets a reprieve from the bulldozer and the next one comes up for sale. Fortunately the Lea Residence has a heritage designation, which means it can’t be torn down—it even comes with its own plaque.
West Broadway:
This is the third time the house at 3979 West Broadway has come up for sale in the last five years. Back in 2009 its future looked shaky when it sold to a developer for $1.65 million. But instead of razing the place, James Curtis did a deal with the City where he sunk close to a million dollars into renovating the house, designated it, and in return was allowed to subdivide and build a second house on the large lot.
The realtor’s blurb says the West Broadway hobbit house offers an option for people wanting to down size, which makes me laugh because that renovation increased the size of the house to 3,000 sq. ft—that’s one gnarly “bungalow.”
Eve Lazarus photo, 2013
The reno also included a new $200,000 thatch-like roof, which is of course the house’s most distinctive feature.
West Vancouver:
The North Shore hobbit house is at 885 Braeside Street on Sentinel Hill in West Vancouver. According to its real estate for sale ad in December 2022, it was completely rebuilt in keeping with its heritage in 1996. This four bedroom house with drop dead views was going for $4.5 million.
Designed by Ross Lort:
The house is one of three story-book cottages in Vancouver designed by architect Ross Lort in the early 1940s. Lort also designed Casa Mia for the Reifel family on Southwest Marine Drive. The others are on King Edward in Vancouver and on Braeside in West Van. The Lea House first appears in the city directories in 1941 and is named for its original owner and builder Brenton Lea. Lea sold his house to William Brown a Vancouver dentist, in 1943.
The hobbit house den. Eve Lazarus photo, 2013
You can get a look inside at the open house tomorrow March 2nd from 2:00 to 4:00 pm.
When Lani Russwurm jumped online in 2008 he was one of the first to write about history in his blog Past Tense. The blog morphed into a weekly writing gig with Bob Kronbauer’s Vancouver is Awesome and last year he published Vancouver was Awesome: a curious pictorial history, a hugely popular local history book which has sat on the best seller list for the past several weeks.
“I did my Masters degree at SFU on a local subject,” he says. “I’d find out all these interesting things that were not directly related to my thesis, but I collected them anyway and after I was done I had all this material that I wanted to share, so I started blogging.”
There are a lot of great stories in Vancouver was Awesome, but one that caught my attention was a photo of 500 Alexander Street, a one-time brothel built and owned by Dolly Darlington in 1912. For years it was the headquarters for the British Seaman’s Mission and today it’s run by the Atira Women’s Resource Society as housing for at-risk teens.
Lani Russwurm at the Paper Hound Book Shop
What I learned from Lani is that back in the 1950s, the building also played a role in Vancouver’s drug history as the mailing address for Al Hubbard, an eccentric American millionaire with a penchant for LSD. Hubbard, writes Lani, became the biggest North American supplier of LSD through his Uranium Corporation. Hubbard apparently turned a number of people onto LSD including Aldous Huxley, the head of Vancouver’s Holy Rosary Cathedral, and then partnered up with Ross MacLean, a high profile psychiatrist who for a time owned Casa Mia and ran the Hollywood Hospital in New Westminster.
There’s a great picture of Harry Gardiner “The Human Fly” climbing the Sun Tower in 1918, and a photo of a 17-year-old Yvonne de Carlo with a boxing kangaroo. Lani tells the story of Percy Williams, a skinny little guy, who for 11 years, was the fastest man alive; and the story of George Paris, a one-time heavyweight boxing champion of Western Canada, personal trainer to Jack Johnson, boxing trainer for the Vancouver Police Department and a jazz musician at the Patricia Hotel.
When he’s not blogging or writing books, Lani lives on the edge of Chinatown with his daughter Sophia and works at a DTES hotel for Atira.
Tree Stump House 1900s, now 4230 Prince Edward Street in Mount Pleasant
I got a call from Bobbi Spark yesterday. Bobbi is a former Hospice boss and runs a research and reporting company in Abbotsford.
The Southlands Community Association hired her to look at the issues flying around Casa Mia, the former Reifel-owned mansion on South West Marine Drive.
Casa Mia, 1920 South West Marine Drive
These days the Reifel’s are best known as the name behind the Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary in Ladner, but at one time the family owned four breweries and two distilleries and made a fortune in rum running during US prohibition. Some of these proceeds were invested back into real estate: the family homes of Casa Mia (1920 South West Marine Drive), Rio Vista (2170 South West Marine Drive) the hunting lodge in Ladner, now headquarters for the Canadian Wildlife Service, a Langley farm, and the Commodore Ballroom.
Casa Mia is a stunning mansion. Features include nine fireplaces, 10 bathrooms, a sauna, hand-painted murals in the playroom, and a full-size art-deco ballroom in the basement.
Owners include Ross Maclean a high profile psychiatrist and Nelson Skalbania. Over the years the price tag has lurched between $4 and $20 million.
About three years ago Maureen McIntosh and Lynn Aarvold of the Care Group paid $10 million for the mansion. The Care Group operates six extended care facilities in BC. They want to operate a 100-bed facility at Casa Mia. Residents want no more than 50.
Proposed plans for Casa Mia
Residents say the proposed additions overshadow the historical nature of the building, and would set a precedent for development that would run roughshod over the heritage and monied character of the neighbourhood (my words).
These residents who have deep pockets and lots of clout, say that they aren’t opposed to converting Casa Mia into a small scale care facility for seniors, just the “aggressive” (their word) rezoning application.
Bobbi’s call made me think of some of the larger issues that affect all municipalities as population increases and we look for affordable housing solutions that don’t involve replacing fine old houses with mega mansions, skyscrapers or parking lots.
Here in Lynn Valley, we’re trying to stop developers from plonking 20-plus storey high-rises into what’s essentially a village. Basically we want Whistler, developers want Metrotown.
Developer’s proposal for Lynn Valley Centre
“Development is coming one way or another,” says Bobbi. “You will either be driven by it or you can ride the beast and get involved and make suggestions and be an organized community with a constructive voice.”
Sensible advice, but I wonder if that’s even possible in a province where half the electorate can’t be bothered to vote.
So whether it’s threat of sagging property values or heritage conservation that’s driving Southlands, at least they’re out there doing something, and so far the residents are in the driving seat. The city rejected the Care Group’s latest proposal and sent Stuart Howard Architects back to the drawing board.
Personally, I think a senior’s facility that preserves Casa Mia is a lot more palatable than other options and hopefully they can reach an acceptable compromise.
As Bobbi says you can’t stop change, but you can manage it.
“They need to get a handle on this and not just let some developers and some city planners downtown make all the decisions for their community but they have to accept that there are going to be changes and that’s the way of the world.”
I toured the Hobbit House this week. The South Cambie house is one of two story book cottages in Vancouver—a third is in West Van. The house has had a ton of media attention since it went up for sale, mostly speculation about its imminent demise.
Realtor Mary Ellen Maasik has been demonized and I’m not sure why. Her job is to sell the property for the highest price she can—and it’s high—a whopping $2.86 million—almost twice its assessed value.
Slated for Development:
According to Maasik, the City would allow a laneway house and a secondary suite on the property in exchange for heritage designation which would lengthen its lifespan. (While the house is on the City’s heritage register, this does not protect it from demolition).
The story book features that have turned this house into a tourist attraction
The other Hobbit House sits on a much quieter street at 3979 West 9th in Point Grey. It sold in June 2009 for $1.65 million and was awarded heritage designation in return for allowing the owner to subdivide and build a second house on the lot.
Cambie Street Corridor:
And while designation is one solution, I’m not convinced it’s the best one. This house is on busy King Edward, smack in the middle of the Cambie Corridor—in an area ripe for rezoning and four-storey buildings. Maasik says that a three house package on nearby Cambie, recently sold for over $8 million.
Cambie Corridor plan
I think a better option would be to move it. The house is already a bona-fide attraction with up to 10 busloads of tourists pulling up every day to snap photos (imagine that while you’re sipping a latte from your roof deck).
So, why not embrace it as a tourist attraction? Strip it back to its original cottage size and move it into Stanley Park or Queen Elizabeth Park or whatever park makes sense. Pop in a gift store or a tea room or both and let people admire the ship decking floors, the walnut doors and the vaulted beam ceilings. Let them get up close and study the amazing multi-layered cedar shingle roof without fear of trampling a home owner’s prized rhoddies.
Eve Lazarus photo, 2013
Designed By Ross Lort:
And then tell them the story of the house.
All three hobbit houses were built by Brenton T. Lea and designed by Ross Lort. Lort who had worked for Samuel Maclure early in his career, had quite the design range. His commissions include George Reifel’s Casa Mia on Southwest Marine, the edgy cube house (Barber residence) on West 10th, and he designed the extension to the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1950.
The first owners listed in the street directories at the King Edward house are William H. James, a foreman with the CPR and his wife Winnifred in 1942.
The hobbit house den. Eve Lazarus photo, 2013
Arn Pentland, a doctor and his wife Mabel bought the Hobbit House in 1976. “Like everyone else my wife and I were in love with it,” Arn told reporter Kim Pemberton in 2004. “I used to drive by it quite a bit and one day I saw a ‘for sale’ sign.”
The Pentland’s knocked down a wall and expanded the kitchen and bedroom. They added a roof top deck and sunroom and put in an elevator. A new multi-layered cedar shingle roof cost them $35,000 in 1991, but the old roof had lasted over half a century.
Arn died a few years ago and Mabel passed away at the end of last year, and the house is now an estate sale. That they loved their house is evident though—from the family photos in the kitchen to the gnome statutes and the painting of their house that hangs over the fireplace.
