Mayor Gerry McGeer Archives

Mayor Gerry McGeer lived at 4812 Belmont Avenue in Point Grey between 1927 and his death there in 1947. At around 10:00 pm on June 17, 2022 the house burned to the ground. It was unoccupied and apparently under renovation after not getting a demolition permit.

What will $20 million buy you in Vancouver? Mayor Gerry McGeer's former West Side digs. — What will $20 million buy you in Vancouver? Mayor Gerry McGeer’s former West Side digs.

Sixth most expensive listing:

As of August 2014, the property at 4812 Belmont is apparently the 6^th most expensive listing in Vancouver. I’m not surprised—it’s a street that’s always attracted big money. According to the listing it’s a “great investment property” with a killer view and over 8,200 sq.ft. of living area including six bedrooms and a conservatory. The listing suggests that new owners either renovate the 1920 property or “build” their own “dream residence.” (The listing shows the view, not the house).

What the listing doesn’t mention is that one of our most colourful Mayors—Gerry McGeer lived in the house from 1927 to his death while still in office in 1947.

As I wrote in Sensational Vancouver, McGeer was a lawyer and later a Member of Parliament, Senator and Member of the Provincial Legislative Assembly. He ran against L.D. Taylor for Mayor in 1934 and won. He’s remembered for reading the Riot Act to a bunch of unemployed men at Victory Square the following year.

Mayor Gerry McGeer:

McGeer pushed for the new site of City Hall at its current Mount Pleasant location and raised much of the $1.5 million through Baby Bonds. In a pitch to investors in June 1935, McGeer told the Vancouver Sun: “Work and wages mean better times and prosperity, and is the correct answer to Communism. In raising $1.5 million for a City Hall, sewers, parks, and lanes, we are providing work and wages…to improve your city.”

McGeer and his wife Charl, daughter of department store magnate David Spencer, paid $25,000 for the house. He parked his Stutz Bearcat—a black, long, low and sleek four-door car with windows made of shatterproof glass in the new garage.

McGeer was a notorious drinker and was said to stash his whiskey in the garden.

McGeer ran again and was elected in 1946.

According to a 1986 biography, Mayor Gerry, McGeer’s daughter Pat recalls that the 59-year-old Mayor had come in to her bedroom to say good night and talk about his recent trip. He reached for a large bottle of eau-de-cologne on her dresser and downed it in one swig. The next morning McGeer’s chauffeur found him dressed in pajamas lying dead on the couch in his Belmont Street study.

Cause of death was massive heart failure.

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.

Click to read posts about:

Subscribe to Our Newsletter