End of the line

The Lynn Valley Hotel

by Eve Lazarus on August 30, 2012

Built in 1909 for Harry Holland — The Lynn Valley Hotel ca.1912 NVMA

The large house at the corner of Lynn Valley and Hoskins Road has always intrigued me, so I dropped into the Community Archives last week to see what I could find out about it. Daien Ide, found this great photo taken around 1912, when the street car ran from the bottom of Lonsdale Street to the top of Lynn Valley Road—where our End of the Line general store now sits.

There’s not a lot of information about the former hotel on file. According to Walter Draycott’s book, Early Days in Lynn Valley, it was built by Harry Holland as the Lynn Valley Hotel in 1909.

Harry’s intention to brew and sell beer on the premises was apparently thwarted by Presbyterian sensibilities in the area. When he couldn’t get a liquor license, he supposedly ran a “dry” hotel catering to tourists visiting Lynn Canyon Park and the suspension bridge. Doesn’t sound like a lot has changed here in over a century.

City directories show Harry as the proprietor with at least one resident—Henry Eastcott, a master mariner. Sharon Proctor writes in her book Time Travel in North Vancouver that it also housed workers employed by the municipality and the lumber companies, until the hotel’s sale in 1923. The hotel then disappears from the street directory for a number of years, and pops up again as a boarding house run by a Mrs. A.E Luck prior to World War 11. In 1944 it’s listed as the Dovercourt Rest home and remains a rest home of some sort until well into the 1990s.

I took a walk past there today and snapped off this photo. The sign at the front says “Dovercourt,” and the old building is looking in need of some love, but at least it’s one of the 152 sites in the district slated to go on the district’s new Heritage Register.

Tags Daien Ide, Dovercourt Rest Home, Early Days in Lynn Valley, End of the line, Harry Holland, Henry Eastcott, Heritage register, Lynn Valley Hotel, North Vancouver Museum and Archives, Sharon Proctor, Time Travel in North Vancouver, Walter Draycott

Arbutus Grocery

by Eve Lazarus on August 21, 2012

Courtesy of VPL Accession Number 46758 (1979) — The Arbutus Grocery Store at West 6th and Arbutus in 1979

When I lived in Kitsilano 20 years ago, I used to drop into the grocery store on the corner of Arbutus and 6^th. Even back then it was ahead of its time with organic produce and hard-to-find items. But just like The End of the Line and the Corner Store in North Vancouver have transformed from grocery stores to neighbourhood cafes, so has the Arbutus Grocery store – now Arbutus Coffee.

I was there on Sunday when Ros Coulson, manager, was given a Places that Matter plaque from the Vancouver Heritage Foundation. Ros says most of her customers are regulars that come from a four-block radius. Some come every day.

The food is great. Specials of the day were a split pea soup, balsamic and quinoa salad, a cheddar and zucchini quiche or a grilled panini with artichoke hearts, asparagus and roasted peppers. Likely because it was late in the day the regulars were polishing off the blueberry pie, a decadent looking German chocolate cake, and maybe the best looking carrot cake I’ve ever seen.

The store was built by Thomas Fletcher Frazer in 1907 with a boom town front. Thomas also owned the California-style bungalow next door at 2084 W. 6^{th —}(shown in the archival photo).

The store is part of Kitsilano’s Delamont Park neighbourhood, and what’s surprising is that it’s still there. The store and houses all along W. 5^th and 6^th were intended to be fodder for a freeway planned for the Burrard-Arbutus connector.

During the 1960s Arbutus Grocery catered to a lively group of artists. Figurative painter Frank Molnar paid $65 a month for his two-bedroom apartment across the street at 2205 W. 6^th. Artist Jack Akroyd had a corner apartment, while another tenant, Elek Imredy had already carved out a solid reputation as a sculptor. Poets John Newlove, bill bissett and Judith Copithorne all lived there at one point. Judith was one of three women who modeled for Imredy’s Girl in a Wetsuit sculpture that sits on a rock in Stanley Park.

Arbutus Coffee and the houses that surround it are still owned by the city. Many are now over a century old. May they be there for the next one.

For more information on the Places that Matter Plaque Project visit the Vancouver Heritage Foundation.

Tags Arbutus Coffee, Arbutus Grocery, bill bissett, Delamont Park, Elek Imredy, End of the line, Frank Molnar, Girl in a Wetsuit, Jack Akroyd, John Newlove, Judith Copithorne, Kitsilano, Places that matter, Ros Coulson, The Corner Store, Thomas Frazer, Vancouver Heritage Foundation

Forbidden Vancouver

by Eve Lazarus on June 3, 2012

I met with Will Woods for coffee last week. Will is a young Brit who moved to Vancouver six years ago with his wife and little boy, and like a lot of us transplants, fell deeply in love with the history of the city.

You may have seen him hunched over the card files at the Vancouver Public Library’s special collections, checking out the journals at Vancouver Archives, or wandering the alleyways of the Downtown Eastside.

“I met historians, I scoured old newspapers, I walked every street in downtown. I had a mission to discover the history of the city that isn’t found in the guidebooks, that isn’t taught in the schools,” he says. “There were stories of corruption, rioting, gangsterism, smuggling and vice.”

He was hooked.

Will chucked in his job as a risk management consultant for Deloitte and founded Forbidden Vancouver, a company that leaves Grouse Mountain and the Suspension bridge to the tour buses, and looks at the speakeasies, opium dens, crooked cops and bootleggers of Vancouver’s shady past.

Customers for his 90 minute tours range from 22 to 75.

What I find interesting is that Will isn’t going after tourists for his tours, although he’s not knocking them back either, but he’s honing in on the locals.

It’s a smart move. I’m always surprised at how many Vancouverites have never heard of the Dr. Sun Yat-sen gardens, visited the Space Centre or taken the Stanley Park train (you don’t need kids for this).

Will hasn’t just researched the city though. He took six months of acting school, studied body language, and created a role for himself—an investigative newspaper reporter.

While most tours are educational based and led by university students, Will’s tours are themed. His current tour is built around prohibition—(1916 to 1920ish). Eventually he wants to run 10 to 12 themed tours a week, he’s currently developing one on crime, and fortunately for him, there was no shortage of it.

“The toughest thing is knowing what to leave out of the tour,” he says.

Will’s tours run every Friday and Saturday night and wind their way through Chinatown, Gastown and the downtown area. You can book online at www.forbiddenvancouver.ca

Tags City of Vancouver Archives, Dr. Sun Yat-sen Gardens, End of the line, Forbidden Vancouver, Grouse Mountain, Space Centre, Stanley Park Train, Vancouver Public Library, Will Woods

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