Hycroft

Behind the Wall at the Hotel Vancouver

by Eve Lazarus on November 27, 2021

Beatrice Lennie created a mural for the Hotel Vancouver’s lobby in 1939. It’s been hidden behind a wall since 1967. This story is from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History .

Beatrice Lennie:

When Beatrice Lennie graduated from the first class at the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts (now Emily Carr University of Art + Design) in 1929, it took four piano movers to shift her diploma piece. She called it “Spirit of Mining.”

Beatrice (1905-1987) studied under Fred Varley, JWG Macdonald and Charles Marega. In 1975, she told a Province reporter that Marega had sculpted a Queen Anne ceiling for her family’s Shaughnessy home on Matthews Avenue around 1910. “It was a large decorative oval with high relief of laurel. Our ceiling was much more beautiful than Hycroft or Alvo von Alvensleben’s,” she said. “I was just a little girl when our house was built but I can vaguely remember the ceiling all coming in pieces.”

Studying sculpture:

Beatrice was the daughter of R.S. Lennie, a barrister who headed up the Lennie Commission—an enquiry into corruption in the Vancouver Police Department in 1928. Her wealthy family was horrified by her chosen career, and she received little emotional or financial support from them. “If I’d been a singer, they’d have sent me to Italy,” she told the Province. “Sculpture was not respectable or ladylike. Singing was acceptable but a woman’s place was in the home. There was terrible discrimination. Women had to be better than men. For one job I was on the scaffold at eight in the morning. I came down and just dropped in the evening. I had to prove something.”

Clydemont Centre, 307 West Broadway, 1978. Courtesy Vancouver Archives

Hotel Vancouver Commission:

In 1939, the Canadian National Railway commissioned Beatrice to create a 3.7 metre sculpture on the main floor of the new Hotel Vancouver. Called Ascension, it was finished in blue steel, brass and chromium. But when the hotel renovated the lobby in 1967, Beatrice’s sculpture and two elevators were left on the wrong side of the new wall. “I used to think sculpture would outlive you, but they bordered up one of mine,” she said eight years later. “They covered it with a wooden wall when they lowered the ceiling. It’s discouraging in one’s own lifetime.”

While you won’t be able to catch a glimpse of Ascension until the next Hotel Vancouver lobby renovation, you can see some of Beatrice’s work around Vancouver.

The Clydemont Centre, 307 West Broadway. Commissioned in 1949 when the building was the Vancouver Labour Temple.

Asclepius, 1951 at 1807 West 10th Avenue. Leonard Frank photo via City of Vancouver

Beatrice’s reliefs were originally at the entrance to the former Shaughnessy Hospital in 1940 when it was built as a health facility for World War 11 veterans. It’s now in the courtyard off the cafeteria at 4500 Oak Street.

Originally the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC at 1807 West 10^th Avenue, Beatrice created Asclepius in 1951. In Greek mythology, Asclepius is the god of healing and medicine.

Sources:

Province, February 28, 1975

Province, August 1, 1975

Murray Maisey, Vancouver as it Was: A Photo History Journey blog

John Steil and Aileen Stalker, Public Art in Vancouver: Angels Among Lions. Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2009

Eve Lazarus, Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020

Tags Alvo von Alvensleben, Ascension, Asclepius, Beatrice Lennie, Charles Marega, Clydemont Centre, College of Physicans and Surgeons, Fred Varley, Hotel Vancouver, Hycroft, JWG Macdonald, Robert Lennie, Shaughnessy Hospital, Vancouver Labour Temple

Who Killed Janet Smith?

by Eve Lazarus on July 23, 2016

On July 26, 1924, Janet Smith was found shot in the head by a .45 calibre automatic revolver in the basement of a Shaughnessy house. The murder of the Scottish nanny rocked Vancouver. The murder touched on high-level police corruption, kidnapping, drugs, society orgies and rampant racism. This is a short excerpt from my book At Home with History: The Secrets of Greater Vancouver’s Heritage Homes

3851 Osler Street

Janet Smith was an attractive 23-year-old Scot who looked after Fred and Doreen Baker’s baby daughter. The Baker’s, with Janet in tow, had recently returned to Vancouver after three years in London and Paris running a “pharmaceutical business.” They decided to return home in 1923 after Scotland Yard began to investigate the business as a front for drug smuggling.

The following year, Janet was found murdered in the Shaughnessy house where they were staying.

Police botched the Smith case. First it took two days to find the bullet. Then the embalming of her body destroyed evidence at the eventual autopsy. Police first called it suicide, later saying that Janet had somehow accidentally shot herself while ironing. Finally, they clued in that there were no powder burns around the bullet hole, and unless Janet also beat herself in the back of the head, burned herself on the back with the iron, and changed her clothes after she was dead, her death was no accident.

Botched:

The newspaper headings changed to “Smith Girl Murdered.”

Janet Smith’s headstone at Mountain View Cemetery. Lani Russwurm photo, Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours

Wong Foon Sing, the Baker’s Chinese houseboy, found Janet in a pool of blood, and became a convenient fall guy. Frustrated that they couldn’t get a confession, at one point several men, including high ranking members of the Point Grey Police Department, dressed up as Ku Klux Klansmen, kidnapped him, dragged him to an attic, tied a heavy rope around his neck, put him on a stool, and pretended to kick it out from under him. After a staggering six weeks of torture, they dumped him in the middle of the night. Police found him stumbling along Marine Drive, rearrested him and shipped him off to Oakalla prison.

CHINESE HOUSEBOY?

Over the years, armchair detectives have come up with a few different scenarios in an attempt to solve her murder. Some say it was Fred Baker, who killed Janet to hide his drug use and illegal business dealings. Others say she was raped and murdered after a wild society party at Hycroft Manor, after which her body was dragged to Osler Street to throw off the investigation. Still others suggest it was Jack Nichol, son of Walter Nichol, the Lieutenant-Governor and publisher of the Province.

No one thinks it was the Chinese houseboy.

Wong was finally acquitted and fled to China in March 1926.

Janet’s body rests uneasily at Mountain View Cemetery, buried by Vancouver’s Scots. Around the corner from the headstone are some coins put there to pay the “ferry man” for her safe passage to the afterlife.

Tags 3851 Osler Street, Doreen Baker, Fred Baker, Hycroft, Janet Smith, Wong Foon Sing

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 Garden Family and the Lester Court Connection

by Eve Lazarus on August 1, 2015

William and Jack Garden before they left for Canada in the late 1880s. Photo courtesy Anders Falk

This story appears in Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the city’s hidden history

I wrote about the Garden family a couple of weeks back. William and Mary Garden arrived in Vancouver in 1889, opened up the Garden and Sons Wholesale Tea and Coffee on East Hastings, and lived for a time at a house at Thurlow and Alberni. William died suddenly in 1897, and it appears that the “Sons” had other ideas, because the business disappeared from the directories the following year.

Jack Garden, back row fourth from the left with members of the Vancouver Photography Club. Photo courtesy Anders Falk

John (known as Jack) became a lumber broker and he was also an avid photographer. And that was lucky for us, because he shot some of these wonderful photos of early Vancouver. When he wasn’t taking photos, he was likely hanging out at the rowing club—this ca.1910 photo of the rowing club was one of his photos.

Vancouver Rowing Club. Photo courtesy Anders Falk

It was also Jack who took this photograph of his parents on what looks like really large tricycles.

William and Mary Garden family in Stanley Park mid-1890s. Photo courtesy Anders Falk

Jack’s younger brother William was a musician who worked at the Bay as his day job. In the 1920s William played piano in the house band at Lester Court at 1022 Davie Street. Thomas Hooper designed the building in 1911 for the Lester Dance Academy.

Hooper was a highly regarded architect, and his buildings included Hycroft in Shaughnessy, the Winch building, and at least one brothel. The building has gone through a number of transformations over the years, but mostly stayed in the entertainment business. During the ‘40s it was the Embassy Ballroom, in the ‘60s it was Dante’s Inferno, later it hosted psychedelic bands as Retinal Circus, and since 1982 it’s been a gay joint called Celebrities.

William married Harriet and they raised three kids at a house on Quebec and 30^th. One of the sons John (Jack) worked for Ideal Ironworks. He married the boss’s daughter Rose Smith (who also happens to be Anders Falk’s grandma). Another interesting connection to Vancouver’s history is that Rose’s brother Douglas Smith engineered the “gravity driven falling ball drive” on the Gastown Steam Clock—his name is on the plaque.

I’d like to thank Catherine Falks for naming her son Anders and not William or John/Jack.

Tags 1022 Davie Street, Celebrities, Dante's Inferno, Douglas Smith, Embassy Ballroom, Garden and Sons Wholesale Tea and Coffee, Gastown Steam Clock, Hycroft, Ideal Ironworks, Jack Garden, John Garden, Lester Court, Mary Garden, Retinal Circus, Rose Garden, Rose Smith, Thomas Hooper, William Garden, Winch Building

Christina Haas’s Cook Street Brothel

by Eve Lazarus on February 8, 2014

In 1912, when it was tough for a woman to make a decent living, Christina Haas arrived in Victoria and bought herself a brothel.

Christina Haas's brothel — Christina Haas commissioned Thomas Hooper to design her Cook Street brothel in 1913. Eve Lazarus photo, 2012

Thomas Hooper once had the largest architectural practice in Western Canada. He designed hundreds of buildings including the Victoria Public Library, the Rogers Chocolates and the Munro’s Books Building in Victoria. And in 1912, the same year he designed Hycroft in Shaughnessy, Vancouver’s Winch Building and submitted plans for UBC, he designed Christina Haas’s, Cook Street brothel.

This is an excerpt from my chapter on the Red Light District in Sensational Victoria.

Cook Street Brothel:

It’s a gorgeous four-square house built in the Classic Revival style. According to the real estate blurb it was remodeled into a five-suite apartment complex in 1945 and it’s the first time the house has been on the market in 55 years. The going price is just under $2 million.

Christina is a shadowy figure. She arrived from California in 1912 at the age of 50 and took over an established brothel on Broughton Street with a steady clientele from the Union Club and Driard Hotel. Business was booming and she decided to move into a more upscale facility in Fairfield. She paid cash for the two lots and took out a building permit in her name and commissioned Hooper to design her brothel.

Thomas Hooper:

Although there is no mention of the Cook Street house in his portfolio, the blueprints are signed by the architect and bear his address. They show a house with three bedrooms, each with a separate entrance and its own bathroom. There are rumours that a secret door once led to a concealed wine cellar.

Neighbours tell stories passed down over the years. The women who worked at the Cook Street brothel wore business attire, and several married, raised families, and went about the rest of their respectable lives ignoring the occasional raised eyebrow and whisper.

Brothel changes hands:

Christina is listed as the owner of the property in the city directories until 1920. The brothel then sold to John Day, a wealthy businessman, and his wife, Eliza Amelia. Day owned the Esquimalt Hotel until it burned down in 1914. He also managed the Silver Springs Brewery and later the Phoenix Brewery. Eliza sold the house after his death in 1944.

Even after Day bought the Cook Street house, his tax notices were sent to Christina’s other brothel on Broughton Street, suggesting that he may have had an ownership stake in both.

Christina’s nephew Earl tells me his aunt sold all her brothel holdings in Victoria in 1919 and moved to Mendocino County to be near her brother John Henry and his wife Eva in Westport. She died in 1938 at the age of 76, and is buried in the Fort Bragg Rose Memorial Cemetery.

Tags brothel, Christina Haas, Driard Hotel, Eliza Amelia Day, Esquimalt Hotel, Fairfield, Hycroft, John Day, Munro's Books, Phoenix Brewery., Rogers Chocolates, Silver Springs Brewery, Thomas Hooper, Union Club, University of BC, Winch Building

On Film: Vancouver at Work and at Play

by Eve Lazarus on January 27, 2011

As the archivist for the CBC in Vancouver, Colin Preston looks after more than 250,000 items and programmes on film and videotape. And, as he’ll tell you, it’s the best historical archive of film footage west of Toronto.

Preston says that over the last decade staff has been shoveling all this archival material into a common database that’s searchable through the CBC’s Intranet. The hope is that one day it will eventually be publicly accessible through the Internet.

Still, it’s a wonderful source of information about a much older Vancouver and it’s another source for anyone looking for footage of an old house or neighbourhood.

Tags B.T. Rogers, CBC Vancouver, Colin Preston, Hycroft, Shannon Mews, University Women's Club, Vancouver Historical Society

BC Binning and the Heritage Inventory

by Eve Lazarus on September 28, 2010

The full story of B.C. Binning’s house is in Sensational Vancouver

Most municipalities have a heritage inventory that includes houses built before 1940. Makes sense doesn’t it? When you think heritage you think old. But actually heritage can be 20 years old, and that can surprise a new home owner wanting to renovate or demolish who is suddenly hauled in front of a heritage commission.

When the City of Vancouver introduced the Heritage Register in 1986, the foremost concern was saving buildings deemed architecturally important. The register identified prominent Shaughnessy houses such as Glen Brae and Hycroft, Roedde House in the West End, as well as various churches, schools, and public buildings. Recently, the city added 22 modern buildings to the register. Five of these are protected through designation: the former BC Hydro building, the former Vancouver Public Library, the Gardner House in Southlands, the Dodek House in Oakridge and the Evergreen Building.

In 1997, the District of North Vancouver published a modern inventory for houses built between 1930 and 1965. Many are modest looking post and beams designed by local legends Arthur Erickson, Ron Thom, Fred T. Hollingsworth and Ned Pratt.

Designed by Ned Pratt in 1941 — BC Binning House

The Binning Residence at 2968 Mathers Crescent, in West Vancouver and built by Ned Pratt, is maintained by The Land Conservancy and it’s well worth checking out on one of the public tours.

Built in 1941 for $5,000, the house is credited with launching the West Coast modernism movement. Unlike the massive multi-million dollar mansions that surround it, Binning responded to the social and economic condition of the time by using local materials and efficient construction materials to create an affordable house that harmonizes art and architecture, form and function.

A prominent artist who studied under Frederick Varley and Henry Moore, Binning founded the University of B.C.’s department of fine arts. His interest in architecture led him to design large mosaic murals for public buildings such as the B.C. Electric Substation and the series of murals which he painted directly onto the walls of his house.

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