Vancouver Heritage Foundation

Celebrating National Aboriginal Day with the Musqueam

by Eve Lazarus on June 21, 2014

National Aboriginal Day is June 21 — A map of Vancouver from the Musqueam perspective

The Vancouver Heritage Foundation is piloting a project with the Musqueam Indian Band to offer a tour of Vancouver from a slightly different perspective then the usual whip around Stanley Park, Spanish Banks and the Museum of Anthropology. Actually, we did all those things on a four hour bus ride, but we also got some insights into traditional Musqueam territory and why several well-known sites hold significance for them.

National Aboriginal Day — Terry Point at a 5,000 year old Midden. Jason Vanderhill photo.

Our first stop was at a fenced-in piece of dirt in Marpole underneath an airport runway. Appearances are deceiving, because this site was once part of a thriving settlement for the Musqueam. According to our guide Terry Point, the land has been occupied for 5,000 years and is one of the most significant archaeological sites in Canada.

Over the years, archaeologists have found carved stone bowls, sculptures, arrowheads, stone tools and skeletons encased in copper. And, while it was declared a National Historic Site of Canada in 1933, that didn’t stop the building of the Fraser Arms Hotel destroying a chunk of it in the 1950s.

As recently as 2011, the City of Vancouver issued a building permit to Century Holdings and it looked like the Marpole Midden would be turned into a 108-unit condo development. But work stopped when the remains of an adult and two small children were discovered, kicking off a Musqueam vigil that went for over 200 days.

The Musqueam subsequently bought back the land from the developer and in 2018, the City returned a parcel of land next to the pub which had been used as a parking lot.

Most of the sites we visited were former warrior villages, and they were a vicious lot back in the day. They used to put their enemies heads on stakes at the mouth of the Fraser to keep out unwelcome visitors, and they buried their dead up in trees, leaving the bodies to rot and later gathering up the bones.

That’s of course how Deadman’s Island in Stanley Park got its name.

Many of the roads we travelled—including Granville Street—were once a network of trails that spread out all over the city and were used by runners to warn the villagers of impending attacks or visitors.

Terry’s aunt, the renowned Coast Salish artist Susan Point, carved the stunning gateway portals that mark the entrance to Stanley Park and the Stanley Park totem poles. These, we are told, are the most visited tourist attraction in B.C.

Terry Point at Spanish Banks. Jason Vanderhill photo.

We ended the tour at the Musqueam Cultural Centre in time to celebrate National Aboriginal Day. There is another tour on Sunday July 27. See the Vancouver Heritage Foundation for details.

Tags Coast Salish Architecture, Deadman's Island, Museum of Anthropology, Musqueam Indian Band, National Aboriginal Day, Stanley Park, Susan Point, Terry Point, Vancouver Heritage Foundation

Casa Mia on this year’s Vancouver heritage house tour

by Eve Lazarus on May 24, 2014

Casa Mia is on this year’s Vancouver Heritage House Tour. I finally got to tour it with my partner in crime Aaron Chapman

Casa Mia is featured in Sensational Vancouver: Built on Rum

Owned by Rum Runners:

Casa Mia must be one of Vancouver’s most storied old mansions, and at the moment, one of the most controversial. It’s a late addition to the tour, and a smart move by the owners looking to sway public opinion towards their plan to turn the old girl into a 61-bed home for seniors.

Built by the Reifel's in 1930 — Casa Mia

Casa Mia was built in 1932 for George Reifel, a brewer who made his fortune during U.S. Prohibition. The proceeds from selling rum to thirsty Americans between 1920 and 1933 was so lucrative that he also built a hunting lodge in Delta (now the Reifel bird sanctuary), and with his brother Harry, who built Rio Vista a few doors down, built the Commodore Ballroom, the Vogue and the Studio, all during the Depression.

The Reifels:

Bill Lort told me my favourite story about Casa Mia. Bill’s father Ross Lort designed the hunting lodge and Casa Mia for George Reifel. One Saturday morning in 1931 when Lort was inspecting the property, Reifel pulled up in his long black car. Dressed in a full length coat and fedora and puffing on a cigar, he asked Lort if he’d like some money. Not waiting for an answer, Reifel reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of bills, peeled off a thousand dollar note and handed it to Lort. Bill, the youngest of five kids, was only four at the time, but still remembers his dad arriving home with the bill. “My father came home, showed the thousand dollar bill to my mother who damn near died of heart failure looking at it,” he says. The Lorts’ hid the note under their bed and took turns sitting on it until the bank opened on Monday morning.

Artists from Walt Disney:

Casa Mia is built in the Spanish-style, with nine fireplaces, 10 bathrooms, a sauna, and a ballroom that had the only sprung floor outside of the Commodore. George brought up artists from Walt Disney Studios to hand-paint murals in the playroom.

While Casa Mia is the most impressive house on the tour this year, the VHF has put together a nice range of houses from both the east and west sides of the city. Tickets are $40.

For more about Casa Mia and the Reifels see:

The Commodore, Casa Mia and others

Developing Casa Mia

Tags Bill Lort, Casa Mia, George Reifel, Reifel Bird Sanctuary, Ross Lort, Vancouver Heritage Foundation

Repurposing Vancouver’s Icons–The Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret

by Eve Lazarus on April 19, 2014

You would think that if a couple of young entrepreneurs wanted to bring business to the Downtown east side, one that offered a safe haven from the streets, served healthy, affordable food, and breathed life back into an old icon, the City and the myriad of agencies that have made an industry out of the poor and troubled would be there to help.

Well no, they’re not.

109 East Hastings Street — John Atkin and Malcolm Hassin outside the former Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret

Andrew Turner, 33, and Malcolm Hassin, 30, opened SBC Restaurant last December on East Hastings, near Main Street. They tell me it’s the only indoor skateboard park in Vancouver.

The building has great vibes. As the Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret, the outside of the building used to have an 800-pound neon sign featuring a Buddha with a jiggling belly. The plan, says Malcolm is to get the restaurant back up and running, and grow fruit and vegetables on the roof of the building. They want to bring live music back to the venue.

The Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret was an integral part of Vancouver’s music scene from 1952 until the early 1990s.

The Vancouver Heritage Foundation named the building one of Vancouver’s 125 places that matter last year, and according to the heritage plaque, in the ‘50s it was the Smilin’ Buddha Dine & Dance. In the ‘60s it was part of the touring soul and rock music circuit, and in the late ‘70s it became part of the punk and alternative music scene.

Jimi Hendrix played there, so did Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, DOA and Jefferson Airplane. 54-40 named their 1994 release after the place, bought the sign and restored it.

The building has sat derelict for the last 20-odd years, another blight on the DTES. It’s still no beauty queen, but give the current business owners a break and that will also change.

When I was there on Thursday there was a steady stream of mainly young male customers. Malcolm says that customers range from eight to 56, and there’s a bunch of “older skater dudes” in their 50s that come once a week, plus a lot of people from the film industry.

Like everything in the building, the skateboard ramp is completely salvaged and repurposed. The ramp is part Expo 86, part donation from skateboarding rock star Kevin Harris, and partly built from several ramps scavenged from various eastside backyards.

BC Hydro wants $30,000 from the guys for an immediate upgrade.

The City is jerking them around about a business licence and stopped them serving food. It’s bureaucracy at its stupidest and I bet the Buddha’s smilin’.

Who lived in your house — in 10 (mostly easy) steps

by Eve Lazarus on March 15, 2014

In some ways, researching your home is like an archeological dig. But with a bit of patience you can find out who built your home, who lived there before you, who was murdered there, who died of a comfortable old age, perhaps, even, who’s haunting it now.

1. City Directories:

I always start with the city directories, and now thanks to the Vancouver Public Library, all of B.C. is online up from 1860 to 1955. After 1955 you can find actual copies at the Vancouver Archives, at the North Vancouver Museum and Archives in Lynn Valley or on microfilm at the VPL. The directories will tell you the name of past residents, owners as well as their occupation. The directories also give information about the population of the time, the business climate and advertisements for businesses—it’s a bit like a tourist brochure.

2. Census:

Once you’ve discovered the people who lived in your house you can find out all sorts of great information through the census records. If nothing else it will give you a whole new appreciation why you slog through the forms every five years.

3. Ownership Title:

If you’re flush with cash you can always visit the Land Titles Office in New Westminster. If you provide them with a legal description (District, Block, Lot), and payment, they will provide you with details on ownership history

4. Vital Events Records:

It gets better every year with birth, marriage and death certificates online. More often than not, you can even find copies of the actual death certificates. This death certificate, for example, tells you that Errol Flynn died in Vancouver in 1959, that he’d been here six days, that he lived in New York City, was a motion picture actor from Tasmania and that he was married to Patrice Wymore (and that’s just the top half)

5. Heritage Registers:

If your house has historical merit (and this includes mid-century homes) it may be listed on a Heritage Register. Most municipalities have them and they are almost all online now. Your local city hall will also have a file on your house, and don’t forget to check your local archives.

6. The Vancouver Building Register:

It’s worth checking to see if your house is on the Vancouver Building Register. This register lists tons of information and sources for residential and commercial buildings in Vancouver.

7. Building Permits

Heritage Vancouver took on the herculean task of transcribing the original handwritten registers from Vancouver Archives. As of the end of March 2015 they had just under 33,000 pre-1922 building permits online in a searchable database. Heritage Vancouver also says that if you dig through the water permits at Vancouver Archives you’ll find additional clues to your house’s completion date.

8. Heritage House Tours:

It’s worth a shot, if your house is old enough it may be on one of these tours. New Westminster has run an annual tour for the past 35 years. The Vancouver Heritage Foundation for the past 12 Vancouver Heritage Foundation. and if you’re in Victoria you’re really lucky because the Victoria Heritage Foundation has put out a comprehensive set of four books.

9. Google:

Sometimes the obvious is best. Simply google your address and see if anything interesting pops up. Often past sales will give you pictures and information on the owners.

10. Newspaper databases:

Taking Google one step further, most newspapers are accessible online through your public library. All you need is your library card. For archival newspapers, the British Colonist is online from 1858-1920.

For more information on researching your home’s history see At Home with History: the secrets of Vancouver’s heritage houses

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

Tags British Colonist, city directories, Errol Flynn, Heritage House Tour, Heritage register, Heritage Vancouver, Land Titles Office, North Vancouver Museum and Archives, Patrice Wymore, Vancouver Building Register, Vancouver Heritage Foundation, Vancouver Public Library, Victoria Heritage Foundation

Hogan’s Alley and the Jimi Hendrix Connection

by Eve Lazarus on February 10, 2013

It may be long gone, but at least Hogan’s Alley is finally getting the recognition that it deserves. As part of the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s Places that Matter program, a plaque will be placed near the Hogan’s Alley Cafe at Gore and Union Streets at 2:00 Sunday February 24.

Once a black hang-out for after-hours clubs, gambling and bootlegging — Hogan’s Alley, Vancouver 1958

Hogan’s Alley Project:

The plaque and ceremony is part of the Hogan’s Alley Memorial Project, part Black History Month, and part B.C. Heritage Week.

When the Georgia Viaduct plowed through Vancouver in 1972, it knocked out Hogan’s Alley and with it a lot of black history. At one time Hogan’s Alley was a hang-out and home for Vancouver’s black community and filled with after-hours clubs, gambling and bootlegging joints. Just eight feet wide and a few blocks long, the Alley was really just a collection of horse stables, small cottages and shacks—a place where the west side crowd came to take a walk on the wild side.

Nora Hendrix lived in this Strathcona house from 1938 to 1952 — 827 East Georgia Street

I’ve written about Nora Hendrix and her Vancouver connection in At Home with History.

From 1938 to 1952, the grandmother of rock legend Jimi Hendrix, lived a few blocks from Hogan’s Alley. Nora, a feisty old lady who turned 100 in Vancouver, was born in Tennessee. She was a dancer in a vaudeville troupe, married Ross Hendrix and settled in Vancouver in 1911, raising three children. Al, the youngest moved to Seattle at 22, met 16-year-old Lucille, and their son Jimi was born in 1942.

Jimi was a frequent visitor to his grandmother’s house. After he left the army in 1962 he hitchhiked 2,000 miles to Vancouver and stayed several weeks. He picked up some cash sitting in with a groups at local clubs. Six years later when the Jimi Hendrix Experience played the Pacific Coliseum, Nora was in the audience.

Tags 207 Union Street, 406 Union Street, Al Hendrix, B.C. Heritage Week, Georgia Viaduct, Hogan's Alley, Hogan's Alley Cafe, Hogan's Alley Memorial Project, Jimi Hendrix, Nora Hendrix, Places that matter, Ross Hendrix, Vancouver Heritage Foundation, Vie's Chicken and Steak House, Vince Fodera

Arbutus Grocery

by Eve Lazarus on August 21, 2012

Courtesy of VPL Accession Number 46758 (1979) — The Arbutus Grocery Store at West 6th and Arbutus in 1979

When I lived in Kitsilano 20 years ago, I used to drop into the grocery store on the corner of Arbutus and 6^th. Even back then it was ahead of its time with organic produce and hard-to-find items. But just like The End of the Line and the Corner Store in North Vancouver have transformed from grocery stores to neighbourhood cafes, so has the Arbutus Grocery store – now Arbutus Coffee.

I was there on Sunday when Ros Coulson, manager, was given a Places that Matter plaque from the Vancouver Heritage Foundation. Ros says most of her customers are regulars that come from a four-block radius. Some come every day.

The food is great. Specials of the day were a split pea soup, balsamic and quinoa salad, a cheddar and zucchini quiche or a grilled panini with artichoke hearts, asparagus and roasted peppers. Likely because it was late in the day the regulars were polishing off the blueberry pie, a decadent looking German chocolate cake, and maybe the best looking carrot cake I’ve ever seen.

The store was built by Thomas Fletcher Frazer in 1907 with a boom town front. Thomas also owned the California-style bungalow next door at 2084 W. 6^{th —}(shown in the archival photo).

The store is part of Kitsilano’s Delamont Park neighbourhood, and what’s surprising is that it’s still there. The store and houses all along W. 5^th and 6^th were intended to be fodder for a freeway planned for the Burrard-Arbutus connector.

During the 1960s Arbutus Grocery catered to a lively group of artists. Figurative painter Frank Molnar paid $65 a month for his two-bedroom apartment across the street at 2205 W. 6^th. Artist Jack Akroyd had a corner apartment, while another tenant, Elek Imredy had already carved out a solid reputation as a sculptor. Poets John Newlove, bill bissett and Judith Copithorne all lived there at one point. Judith was one of three women who modeled for Imredy’s Girl in a Wetsuit sculpture that sits on a rock in Stanley Park.

Arbutus Coffee and the houses that surround it are still owned by the city. Many are now over a century old. May they be there for the next one.

For more information on the Places that Matter Plaque Project visit the Vancouver Heritage Foundation.

Tags Arbutus Coffee, Arbutus Grocery, bill bissett, Delamont Park, Elek Imredy, End of the line, Frank Molnar, Girl in a Wetsuit, Jack Akroyd, John Newlove, Judith Copithorne, Kitsilano, Places that matter, Ros Coulson, The Corner Store, Thomas Frazer, Vancouver Heritage Foundation

Places that Matter

by Eve Lazarus on June 23, 2012

At 7:30 pm on Tuesday June 26, the Vancouver Heritage Foundation is presenting a Places that Matter plaque to the Joy Kogawa House. The house at 1450 West 64^th Avenue is one of 125 places chosen to celebrate Vancouver’s 125^th anniversary and represent people, places and events that have shaped the city and that matter to Vancouverites. Everyone is welcome to attend.

For more about Joy Kogawa and Kogawa house see Sensational Vancouver’s legendary women chapter

While huge numbers of perfectly solid old houses have been torn down all over Vancouver, replaced by monster houses or parking lots or subsidized government housing, those that remain form an important part of the city’s early history. More importantly, these houses provide a context for the social history of Vancouver and reveal secrets that would otherwise be forgotten or hidden forever.

1450 West 64th Street — Joy Kogawa House – 1912

Joy Kogawa’s childhood house is a perfect example. The 1912 house is a modest wood-framed bungalow in South Vancouver, one of the few original houses that remain in the neighborhood. While there’s really nothing architecturally significant about it, what makes it of great historical importance and worth preserving is the house’s social history.

The house figures prominently in Joy’s classic novel Obasan, considered one of the 100 most important Canadian books ever written. The house is a physical reminder of the time when 22,000 Japanese-Canadians—fishermen, miners, merchants, and foresters—were wrenched from their homes and interned at places like Slocan, BC, during the Second World War. It was a shocking period in Canada’s history, and Joy’s house is an important monument to that time.

Obasan tells the story of the Japanese internment through the eyes of Naomi Nakane, 6, who had her family ripped apart by the war. In reality, Joy Nakayama, born in 1935 and her family had their house confiscated by the Canadian Government and sold without their permission, in 1942.

“The house, if I must remember it today, was large and beautiful,” she writes in Obasan. “I looked it up once in the November 1941 inch-thick Vancouver telephone directory. “I wrote to the people who lived there and asked if they would ever consider selling the house, but they never replied.”

1450 West 64th Avenue — Joy Kogawa House c1940

Joy goes on to write that the house she remembered had a hedge and rose bushes, flowers and cactus plants that lined the sidewalk. The backyard had a sand box, an apple tree and a swing where she would dangle by her knees.

In 2003 Joy drove past the old house while on a trip to Vancouver. She was stunned to find that it was for sale. “But the asking price was out of sight, over $500,000 dollars,” she told a Vancouver Sun reporter. “Still it was amazing that the house was still there, when all around it, the old houses were gone and replaced with new ones.”

When it looked like the new owner was set on tearing down the house a group formed the Joy Kogawa Homestead Committee, and together with the Land Conservancy, saved the house from demolition.

Today the house is a writers-in-residence site and a literary landmark.

For more information: Places that matter and Joy Kogawa House

Tags 1450 West 64th Avenue, Joy Kogawa, Nakayama, Obasan, Places that matter, The Land Conservancy, Vancouver Heritage Foundation

Vancouver Heritage House Tour

by Eve Lazarus on May 19, 2012

Win two tickets to the Vancouver Heritage House Tour on Sunday June 3rd. Simply leave a comment at the end of this blog saying which building you’d like to get inside (could be a mansion such as Casa Mia, Shannon or Gabriola, or a commercial building such as the Dominion Building or BC Sugar, or even a First Nation’s church such as St. Paul’s in North Van). I’ll be drawing a random winner at noon Friday June 1st.

Houses include two Shaughnessy mansions, a restored corner store and converted church. — Vancouver Heritage House Tour

Tags Diane Switzer, Edward Hunter, Heritage House Tour, John Pennyway, Vancouver Heritage Foundation

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