George Reifel

Casa Mia on this year’s Vancouver heritage house tour

by Eve Lazarus on May 24, 2014

Casa Mia is on this year’s Vancouver Heritage House Tour. I finally got to tour it with my partner in crime Aaron Chapman

Casa Mia is featured in Sensational Vancouver: Built on Rum

Owned by Rum Runners:

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.

Built by the Reifel's in 1930 — 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.

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.

For more about Casa Mia and the Reifels see:

The Commodore, Casa Mia and others

Developing Casa Mia

Tags Bill Lort, Casa Mia, George Reifel, Reifel Bird Sanctuary, Ross Lort, Vancouver Heritage Foundation

Vancouver’s Hobbit House

by Eve Lazarus on May 18, 2013

The Hobbit House is for sale at $2.86 million — 587 West King Edward

*See update Hobbit House sold

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).

587 West King Edward — 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 9^th 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.

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.

3979 West Broadway — 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 10^th, 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.

Hobbit House interior — 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.

So what do you think? Destroy, designate or move?

Tags 587 West King Edward, Arn Pentland, Barber Residence, Cambie Corridor, Casa Mia, George Reifel, Hobbit House, Mabel Pentland, Mary Ellen Maasik, Ross Lort, Vancouver Art Gallery, William H. James, Winnifred James

Commodore Ballroom voted 8th most influential club in North America

by Eve Lazarus on July 8, 2011

For more about the Commodore Ballroom see Sensational Vancouver

Billboard Magazine hit the streets last week naming our Commodore Ballroom one of North America’s 10 most influential clubs, right up there with New York’s Bowery Ballroom and the Fillmore in San Francisco. According to Billboard, the Commodore scored a spot on the list because it’s well-branded with great sightlines and amazing sound. “Plus that certain intangible something that just equals cool.”

Photo by Stuart Thomson for Star Newspaper — The dance floor of the Commodore Ballroom, December 1930

As well as hosting a bunch of legendary performers such as Bryan Adams, The Guess Who, U2 and the Police, the club has a fascinating history.

Built by Rum Runners in 1929

I wrote a chapter about the Reifel family in At Home with History, a family name that is probably best known today for the Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary, brewed the family fortune and built the cabaret during US Prohibition.
Around the same time, the Reifel brothers Harry and George built mansions on “Millionaire’s row” on Southwest Marine Drive. George had architect Ross Lort design Casa Mia—a Spanish-style colonial villa. Harry moved into the equally lavish Rio Vista a few blocks away.

For their weekend getaways, Harry bought a story-book cottage on a farm near Langley, bred jersey cows and trained race horses. Pleased with his architect’s work on Casa Mia, George commissioned Lort to design a hunting lodge at his property on Westham Island just outside Ladner. It’s now the offices of the Canadian Wildlife Service.

Harry Reifel raised jersey cows and trained race horses at his Langley farm — Bella Vista, 6270 Glover Road, Milner

Casa Mia has nine fireplaces, 10 bathrooms a sauna, hand-painted murals in the playroom by Walt Disney Studio artists and a full-size art-deco ballroom similar to the Commodore’s. Rubber tires and horsehair inserted under the dance floor created a spring so that when lots of people stepped onto it, it felt like jumping on a trampoline.

And, Depression it might have been, but in December 1930, the Commodore Ballroom opened to a sold-out crowd of 1,500 soon attracting names such as Tommy Dorsey, Count Basie and Rudy Vallee.

The Reifels Resign

The Reifel’s owned a number of boats that made frequent trips down the coast of the US, but managed to stay fairly clean until 1933. The following July the Vancouver Sun ran a story that the Reifel’s had resigned from the board of directors of Brewers and Distillers of Vancouver–the “best known liquor company of the Pacific Coast” because of allegations that their products had found their way south of the border during Prohibition.

A few days later the Province reported that the Reifels were indicted and being sued by Seattle’s Attorney-General for $17.2 million. “The alleged operations included the formation of special companies and the use of a fleet of boats, some of which were directed by radio from British Columbia.”

The case eventually settled out of court for $700,000.

Tags Billboard Magazine, Bowery Ballroom, Brewers and Distillers of Vancouver, Canadian Wildlife Service, Casa Mia, Commodore Ballroom, Fillmore, George Reifel, Harry Reifel, Rio Vista, Ross Lort, rum runners, Westham Island

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