Occasionally it’s nice to celebrate heritage buildings that have survived the bulldozers and are being used in interesting ways. One of my favourites is the eccentric Accommodations by Pillow Suites.
Accommodations by Pillow Suites, Mount Pleasant
This eccentric former corner grocery store was built in 1910 near Vancouver City Hall and is a short-term rental suite. I visited some years ago when I was writing Frommers with Kids Vancouver and it was like being inside a giant jumble sale. There were Coca Cola lampshades, Campbell Soup light fittings, a fire-engine red 1940s fridge, a 1920 General Electric stove, and an old clawfoot bathtub.
Corkscrew Inn, Kitsilano
Wayne Meadows was on his way to buy some bread one day in 2001 when he saw a For Sale sign outside a 1912 house, just three houses away from his own home. Wayne was six months away from retirement and he decided to buy it for what he calls “a little fix-up project.”
“I did buy it and I did retire, and I discovered that it was a flop house for university kids. Everything had been jip-rocked over.” Wayne, hired architect Alexandre Ravkov for the renovation and became the contractor for his house’s extreme renovation.
Wayne’s wife Sal Robinson, a high school teacher and creative type, jumped in and designed the different room decors—there’s five—with names such as British India, Art Deco and Arizona. She made 83 stain-glassed windows, most of them with a corkscrew theme.
Why corkscrews you ask?
Because Wayne’s been collecting them since the ‘70s, and now owns thousands. He recently returned from a corkscrew convention in Bucharest, and his B&B has a corkscrew museum in the basement.
The Inn won a City of Vancouver Heritage Award in 2004. I asked Wayne, knowing what he did now, would he do it all over again. He told me on the day that he saw the For Sale sign he would have kept on walking.
West End Guest House
Nestled in a sea of non-descript apartment buildings, the pink Victorian house on Haro Street really stands out. Built in 1906 by the Edwards family, visitors are said to include Pauline Johnson, the poet. The Edwards boys, George and Edgar, ran a photography studio on Cordova Street and the family held onto the house until 1964. It became a B&B in 1984.
West End Guest House, 1362 Haro Street. Eve Lazarus photo
The Manor Guest House, Mount Pleasant
Brenda Yablon has operated the 1902 Edwardian home as a B&B for the past 23 years. She recently sold the old house and it will change management next week. As well as being one of the oldest buildings left in Vancouver, and just a block away from city hall, I love the elegance of the architecture and décor and the stunning views.
Buchan Hotel, West End
This is a charming 1926 low-rise building on a tree-lined, largely residential street, just blocks from Stanley Park. The huge hallways have historic prints of Vancouver and Tiffany lamps. There’s a sitting-room just off the lobby with a blazing fire in the winter, comfortable overstuffed furniture and a well-stocked bookcase.
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When Adams bought the brick building at the corner of Powell and Columbia Streets in 1991 it was abandoned and abused. Likely it would have gone the way of other historical Gastown buildings if he hadn’t seen its potential.