Selwyn Pullan shot these photos of the Ritz Hotel in 1956, shortly after it had been renovated into this awesome mid-century modern look.
But while it had a fancy name, the Ritz Hotel at 1040 West Georgia was originally designed as a YMCA in 1912 by Henry Sandham Griffith. Griffith had offices in Vancouver and Victoria and was riding the real estate boom of the time. He made enough money to build himself a castle-like manor he named Fort Garry on Cook Street in Victoria, that later belonged to David Spencer and became known as Spencer’s Castle. It’s now part of a condo development.
Unfortunately for the YMCA, the economy tanked in 1913, the First World War broke out the following year and the Y couldn’t raise the money to finish the building. It sold, and was completed as the St. Julien Apartments in 1924. Radio Station CJOR launched in 1926, and shared the building for the next three years.
The St. Julien Apartments didn’t last long. By 1929, it had transformed into the Ritz Apartment Hotel, offering hotel rooms and fully serviced apartments. One of its long-term residents was Mabel Ellen (Springer) Boultbee, a divorcee who is said to be the first white child born on Burrard Inlet. She was born in Moodyville in 1875 and died in her room at the hotel 77 years later. She shared the apartment with her sister Eva.
Mabel and Eva ran a school together in the 1890s, and Mabel wrote for the Vancouver Sun’s women’s pages for 30 years. She was also a member of the swanky women-only Georgian Club which occupied the top floor of the Ritz Hotel from 1947 until the building’s untimely demise in 1982.
The Devonshire Hotel—our other much loved and storied building just two blocks away on West Georgia, came down in 1981, replaced by the HSBC building.
The Ritz Hotel was replaced by the 22-storey hideous gold Grosvenor building.
With thanks to:
- the Vancouver Public Library and BC City Directories
- Chuck Davis’s Vancouverhistory.ca
- Changing Vancouver blog
- Building the West: Early Architects of British Columbia by Don Luxton
- Find a Grave
To find out more about fabulous buildings that no longer exist – go to: Our Missing Heritage
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