John Garden

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

Thurlow and Alberni Streets: then and now

by Eve Lazarus on July 4, 2015

Garden family at 752 Thurlow Street, ca1890s. Photo courtesy Anders Falk

This story appears in Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History.

Anders Falk is a Vancouver realtor with deep roots in the city. His great, great grandparents William and Mary Henderson Garden arrived in Vancouver from Helensburgh, Scotland, via Liverpool and a cross Canada train trip in April 1889. William opened up Garden and Sons Wholesale Tea and Coffee on East Hastings. By 1894, Murchies has broken their monopoly on the tea business, and William and Mary and their two sons William and John have moved into a new house at the corner of Thurlow and Alberni Street.

Garden and Sons Wholesale Teas, 222 East Hastings Street, ca.1890s. Photo courtesy Anders Falk

William died in 1897, and the following year, the business has disappeared from the directory. John became a lumber broker and William Junior played in a band and worked at the Bay for his day job. The Gardens remain at 752 Thurlow until 1903. Fortunately one of the Garden family was an avid photographer and was able to capture the family’s various activities—at the house, a boat at the rowing club, and biking in Stanley Park.

Anders says Joe Fortes taught the Garden kids to swim at nearby English Bay.

William Lamont Tait, a wealthy retired lumber and real estate tycoon, is the next resident at 752 Thurlow. Tait must have spent much of the next few years planning and supervising the building of Glen Brae, his Shaughnessy mansion on Matthews. Completed in 1911, Glen Brae, named for Tait’s Scottish homeland, was dubbed “the Mae West” by locals because of its two outlandish turrets. Tait died in 1919, and in 1925, his former house became the headquarters of the KKK. More recently it has found a nicer use as Canuck Place.

The house on Thurlow Street and Alberni, like most large places in the West End, went through a number of uses—at one point it was a YWCA, a nursery, and during the First World War, it was occupied by the Canadian Medical Army Corps.

Rear of 754 Thurlow Street in 1956 CVA Bu P508-19

Between 1924 and 1940, 752 Thurlow showed up as the Vancouver Women’s Building in the directories, and in 1941 it was taken over by the Salvation Army. Surprisingly, it looks like it survived until at least 1956, and at some point went through a street change to #754.

In 1966, 752 Thurlow was a three-storey building next to the Manhattan Apartments and occupied by Oil Can Harry’s. The club stayed there for the next 11 years.

The Carlyle, a 21-storey tower replaced the Thurlow Street building in 1989. Its address is now on Alberni.

The Carlisle, 1060 Alberni Street — The Carlyle, 1060 Alberni Street

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