Stuart Building

The Evolution of Devonian Harbour Park

by Eve Lazarus on June 26, 2021

The name of the 11-acre green space at the entrance to Stanley Park known as Devonian Harbour Park has nothing to do with its indigenous history, the land’s connection to the Kanakas, the buildings that once dotted its landscape or Vancouver. The park was named after the Calgary-based Devonian Group of Charitable Foundations which forked over $600,000 to develop the site to its present look in 1983.

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

Note the lovely old Stuart Building (1909-1982) Bruce Stewart photos

Kanaka:

Kanaka was a term for indigenous Hawaiians who came to Canada in the early 1800s to work for the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fur trade. Most went home, but some stayed, married Squamish women and settled in Coal Harbour.

By the early 1900s, the Kanakas had been chased out and moved to the Mission Reserve in North Vancouver. That left the land free to develop. And, in 1911, Vancouver’s population of nearly 150,000 felt big enough to sustain a 10,000-seat arena. It was built by a couple of young guys from Victoria: brothers Frank and Lester Patrick (aged 25 and 27 respectively) who needed a home for their new Pacific Coast Hockey Association. As a comparison, Rogers Arena, built in 1995, has a capacity of 18,910.

Denman Arena:

In 1915, the Denman Arena hosted Vancouver’s first and only Stanley Cup—when they beat the Ottawa Senators in three straight games. Rudolph Valentino judged a beauty contest, Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes) gave a speech, and the arena was used for public skating, wrestling, military assemblies and musical performances.

Selwyn Pullan photographed the first proposed model in 1963

Then on August 20, 1936, just hours after 4,000 boxing fans watched Max Baer fight James Walsh, the building burned to the ground.

In 1927, the Patricks built the Denman Auditorium just to the south of the Denman Arena. The Auditorium survived the fire, went through a few different owners and names, hosted everything from political rallies to a strange assortment of revivalists and faith healers from the States.

Bruce Stewart took these photos of the ‘tribe’ in residence in November 1971. He had met with Rod Marining, later co-founder of Greenpeace and Rod was able to rally the tribe for this amazing ensemble shot of everyone on the big rock. “Later in the week, I ventured down to the small a-frame lean-to during a snowstorm to meet up with the gang and to present my photographs,” says Bruce.

Development:

The building was demolished in 1959 to make way for the opening of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

Now devoid of buildings, developers dreamed of hotels and condos. The first attempt came from New York in the early 1960s. The second, by a local outfit called Harbour Park Developments that proposed 15 towers soaring up to 31-storeys in height. The third was a plan by the Four Seasons Hotel chain. They wanted to build a 14-storey hotel, three 30-storey condos towers, and a bunch of townhouses.

A peace sign garden at All Seasons Park, the proposed site of a Four Seasons Hotel near the entrance to Stanley Park, on May 30, 1971. Gordon Sedawie photo, Province

Hippies:

On May 29, 1971 about a hundred hippie/activists took over the site. They planted maple trees and vegetables, dug a pond, and installed children’s playground equipment. They called it All Seasons Park. The hippies lasted just under a year. Mayor Tom Campbell brought in the backhoes and knocked all the shelters down. Campbell’s own development dream fell apart later that year when the Federal government refused to hand over a crucial piece of land. Instead, the land was annexed to Stanley Park and purchased by the City of Vancouver.

One of the most popular features of the park is the bronze sculpture of the woman sitting on the park bench. She’s searching through her bag looking for the glasses that she’s forgotten are on top of her head. One Valentine’s Day, the woman was joined by another bronze statue—that of North Vancouver pioneer Walter Draycott. No one is saying how Walter got all the way to Stanley Park from his Lynn Valley bench, but he was returned without incident and bolted into place to stop him from wandering off again. Eve Lazarus photo, 2020

Tags Bruce Stewart, Denman Arena, Denman Auditorium, Devonian Harbour Park, Kanakas, Mayor Tom Campbell, Stanley Park, Stuart Building, Vancouver Exposed

Our Missing Heritage: The Stuart Building

by Eve Lazarus on April 24, 2021

The Stuart Building, ca.1970. Angus McIntyre photo

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

The Stuart Building was a landmark that sat at the southeast corner of Georgia and Chilco Streets, marking the border between the city and Stanley Park from 1909 until its demise in 1982.

View from the tower of the Stuart Building, July 1982. Angus McIntyre photo

Painted Sky Blue:

It didn’t have the elegance of the Birks Building, the grandeur of the second Hotel Vancouver or the presence of the Georgia Medical-Dental Building. It was simply a modest three-storey wood-frame building painted sky blue and capped with a turret.

Stuart Building shown in 1974 sitting behind a 1948 Brill trolleybus. Angus McIntyre photo.

There was a store that rented bikes and a craft shop on the ground floor and accommodation above, and I imagine it was this simplicity that appealed to the many people who petitioned so hard to try and save it.

Angus McIntyre checks out the turret of the Stuart Building in July 1982. Jim McPherson photo.

Bought by Billionaire:

Macau billionaire Stanley Ho, aka “the King of Gambling” bought the Stuart building and its lot in 1974 for $275,000. Ho offered to upgrade the building and give the city a 30-year lease in exchange for zoning incentives on another property. But in 1982, council members Don Bellamy, Harry Rankin, Bruce Eriksen and Bruce Yorke decided to follow George Puil’s suggestion to “get rid of it once and for all” (Mayor Mike Harcourt, Marguerite Ford and May Brown voted to save it).

Stuart Building is demolished at dawn in July 1982. Angus McIntyre photo

Bulldozed:

Angus photographed the building in the 1970s, and he was there to record its untimely end at dawn one July morning, the earliness of the hour chosen presumably to get there before the protestors. Angus says that, at the time, Chilco was a through Street from Beach Avenue. “The West End had no diverters or barriers or stop signs for that matter. There was a stop sign at Georgia, and it was a legal but dicey left turn to head to the Lion’s Gate Bridge. The cars on Chilco would back up all the way to Beach but were kept moving by a policeman. He also stopped all the traffic to let the trolleybuses turn into and out of Chilco and Georgia.”

The Stuart Building sat at the entrance to Stanley Park. It was demolished in 1982. Photo Courtesy Angus McIntyre

Barb Wood painted the Stuart Building on the cover of a Vancouver centennial engagement calendar in 1986. After witnessing the demolition, she told Jason Vanderhill: “We were told it was too frail to stand, so it should come down. When they drove the first bulldozer through it, the results were like a Bugs Bunny cartoon—the structure was so sound, that the machine left a bulldozer shaped hole, side to side.”

The Stuart Building’s replacement in 2020. Eve Lazarus photo (from Vancouver Exposed)

Tags Birks Building, Georgia Medical and Dental Building, Second Hotel Vancouver, Stanley Ho, Stuart Building

Our Missing Heritage: 18 Lost Buildings of Vancouver

by Eve Lazarus on April 14, 2018

Originally from Edmonton, Raymond Biesinger is a Montreal-based illustrator whose work regularly appears in the New Yorker, Le Monde and the Guardian. In his spare time, he likes to draw lost buildings.

In his down-time, Biesinger is drawing his way through nine of Canada’s largest cities. He’s just finished Vancouver, the sixth city in his Lost Buildings series, and his print depicts 18 important heritage buildings that we’ve either bulldozed, burned down or neglected out of existence.

Biesinger uses geometric shapes to ‘build’ his building illustrations

Vancouver’s Lost Buildings:

The lost buildings include iconic ones such as the Georgia Medical-Dental building, the second Hotel Vancouver, and the Birks Building. It also includes the Stuart Building, the Orillia, Electric House, the Mandarin Garden and Little Mountain–described as “British Columbia’s first and most successful social housing project” (there’s a full list below).

#16 Vancouver Art Gallery (1931-1965) Courtesy CVA 99-4061

Biesinger spent loads of hours researching photos from different online archival sources, as well as local journalists and blogs such as mine.

The Short List:

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of amazing buildings missing from our landscape for Biesinger to choose from. Narrowing down his list was a challenge. He looked for buildings that were socially, architecturally or historically important.

Union Station designed by Fred Townley in 1916. and demolished in 1965. Illustration by Raymond Biesinger

“I tried to get a selection of buildings that had a variety of social purposes—so residences, towers, commercial spaces, athletic spaces, transportation spaces, entertainment and that kind of thing,” he says. “At one point my Vancouver list had mostly theatres on it, because there were so many gorgeous old Vancouver theatres.”

Two of the biggest losses for Vancouver, in Biesinger’s opinion, was the Vancouver Art Gallery’s art deco building on West Georgia and the David Graham House in West Vancouver designed by Arthur Erickson in 1963.

West Coast Modern:

“It just blew my mind that this west coast modern house was demolished in 2007. Someone bought it for the lot and knocked it down so they could put up a McMansion,” he says. “The VAG building from 1931 is incredible. When I found that it was love at first sight. The supreme irony that it was knocked down and is currently a Trump Tower is insane.”

Biesinger has a degree in history from the University of Alberta, and between 2012 and 2016 was at work on a series that showed 10 different Canadian cities during specific points in their history—for example—Montreal at the opening of Expo ’67 and Vancouver during the opening of the Trans-Canada Highway in 1962.

Vancouver in 1962. Courtesy Raymond Biesinger

“What really fascinated me was the buildings that weren’t standing any more, and that people were surprised that existed,” he says.

So how does Vancouver stack up against heritage losses in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Edmonton and Calgary?

”The worse a city’s record for preserving old buildings, the more enthusiastic people are about these prints,” he said. “Vancouver has done a poor job. I think the economic currents running through Vancouver are just insane and not in favour of preserving the old.”

The 18 Lost Buildings:

1. Georgia Medical-Dental building (1928-1989)

2. Electric House (1922-2017)

3. The old Courthouse (1888-1912)

4. Little Mountain (1954-2009)

5. Birks Building (1913-1974)

6. Mandarin Garden (1918-1952)

7. The Stuart Building (1909-1982)

8. Vancouver Athletic Club (1906-1946)

9. Pantages Theatre (1907-2011)

10. Union Station (1916-1965)

11. The Orillia (1903-1985)

12. Market Hall (1890-1958)

13. Vancouver Opera House (1891-1969)

14. The second Hotel Vancouver (1916-1949)

15. Ridge Theatre (1950-2013)

16. the Vancouver Art Gallery (1931-1985)

17. Majestic Theatre (1918-1967)

18. David Graham House (1963-2007)

For more posts on Vancouver’s missing heritage: Our Missing Heritage

Biesinger’s Lost Building posters are $40 and you can order through his website: fifteen.ca

Missing Heritage

Tags Arthur Erickson, Birks Building, David Graham House, Georgia Medical-Dental Building, Orillia, Pantages, Raymond Biesinger, Second Hotel Vancouver, Stuart Building, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver Opera House

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