Crofton Girl’s School

The work of Charles Marega (1871-1939)

by Eve Lazarus on March 26, 2016

Charles Marega died on March 27, 1939.

And, while you may not know his name you will know his work. Those are his two lion statues at the south end of the Lions Gate Bridge. And while the lions may be his most well known work, Charles (or Carlos as he was christened) was a prolific sculptor in Vancouver.

I first heard of him when I was writing about Alvo von Alvensleben for At Home with History. Alvensleben owned what’s now part of Crofton Girl’s School and the 20 acres it sat on at West 41^st Avenue and Blenheim in Kerrisdale. He hired Marega to carve a magnificent riot of gargoyles, bats, rabbits and assorted weird faces in the white plaster of his dining room ceiling.

Crofton House ceiling courtesy Crofton House

Marega maidens At that point Marega wasn’t very well known, but he had just shocked Vancouver’s sensibilities by carving nine topless terra cotta maidens on L.D. Taylor’s building (now the Sun Tower), which likely appealed to the flamboyant Alvensleben.

Other commissions include the bronze bust of David Oppenheimer, Vancouver’s second mayor at the entrance to Stanley Park; the statue of Captain Vancouver in front of Vancouver City Hall; the 14 famous people on the Parliament Buildings in Victoria; and the drinking fountain that sits in Alexandra Park to honour Joe Fortes.

As Marega was creating sculptures for public places, his plaster work was also in demand for private mansions. His work can be found at Rio Vista on South West Marine Drive, Hycroft in Shaughnessy Heights, and Shannon at 57^th and Granville.

While Marega worked for the wealthy, in the 1930s he and his wife Bertha lived a humble existence at 1170 Barclay Street–a simple two-storey grey stucco apartment building in the West End with the improbable name of “The Florida.”

Charles Marega's home in the 1930s — The Florida on Barclay

To make ends meet, Marega taught at the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts (the forerunner to Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design). In fact, he had just finished teaching a class in 1939 when he had a heart attack and died. He was 68.

Tags 1170 Barclay Street, Alvo von Alvensleben, At Home with History, Carlos Marega, Charles Marega, Crofton Girl's School, Hycroft, Rio Vista, Shannon, Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts

The Former Houses of Beach Avenue

by Eve Lazarus on March 17, 2013

For the first half of last century, houses lined the water side of Beach Avenue, from the Burrard Street Bridge to Stanley Park

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

When I first started researching Alvo von Alvensleben some years ago I made several road trips to see how many of the buildings associated with him had withstood the bulldozer. Happily many did. His private home (1910-1913) at the time a 20-acre estate in Kerrisdale, is now the “old residence” at the Crofton Girl’s School, the Wigwam Inn is owned by the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club, the Dominion Building still dominates the corner at West Hastings and Cambie, his hunting lodge in North Vancouver is a private residence, and houses that he built for employees in Pitt Meadows, Port Mann and Issaquah, Washington still exist.

Taken from the Sylvia Hotel, 2013. CVA 2013-002.1

1409 Nicola Street:

But I was intrigued by one that didn’t.

In 1909 the city directory lists Alvensleben’s home as 1409 Nicola Street, but when I went to track down the address, I landed on the grassy promenade of Beach Avenue with nary a house in sight.

It turns out that the water side of Beach Avenue was lined with houses right up to the 1950s. A newspaper article from 1950, reports that the City expropriated 14 sea-side houses in 1929 with the intention of creating our current scenic drive from English Bay to the Burrard Street Bridge.

“Depression, war and housing shortages have since thwarted the Park Board’s scheme to tear down the houses and landscape the property into a seashore drive which would give motorists a panoramic view of English Bay and West End residents several blocks of new ornamental parkland.”

It looks like 1409 Nicola may have been one of these houses situated between Bidwell and Nicola, at least there was still a listing for it in 1950—the only house over Beach Drive.

Then I read a memoir by Martin Nordegg called “The Possibilities of Canada are Truly Great,” written about the period from 1906 to 1924. Nordegg writes that he was sent to British Columbia in 1909 to check up on Alvensleben on behalf of a German Bank. “This German” he calls him, “had induced German aristocrats to entrust him with large amounts of capital for investment. His name was Alvo von Alvensleben. His residence looked like a castle on the Rhine with turrets and bastions.”

Joe Fortes house on Beach Avenue — Joe Fortes and his sweet little cabin at the foot of Bidwell Street. Demolished in 1922. CVA BuP111, colourized by Canadian Colour

Beach Avenue Houses:

I went to the Vancouver Archives to look for pictures of these houses. Couldn’t find one. And then a few weeks back I saw a picture of Carol Haber in the Vancouver Sun holding a 1913 photograph recently donated to the Archives. Heather Gordon, Archives Manager, was kind enough to send me this photo—and for a while I thought I had Alvo’s house–the one at the foot of Nicola as described by Nordegg. Unfortunately the photo was taken at the top of what’s now the Sylvia Hotel, so it couldn’t be Nicola, but it’s a great photo and maybe some more will start to emerge.

Heather says that the Archives are posting a blog about the area in the next little while. Can’t wait to learn more about that area. Does anyone remember these houses or have any photos of them?

For more on the Englesea Lodge which is the apartment block on the top left of the photo see: The Life and Death of the Englesea Lodge

Tags 1409 Nicola Street, Alvo von Alvensleben, Carol Haber, City of Vancouver Archives, Crofton Girl's School, Dominion Building, Heather Gordon, Martin Nordegg, Royal Vancouver Yacht Club, Wigwam Inn

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 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

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