Winch Building

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

Christina Haas’s Cook Street Brothel

by Eve Lazarus on February 8, 2014

In 1912, when it was tough for a woman to make a decent living, Christina Haas arrived in Victoria and bought herself a brothel.

Christina Haas's brothel — Christina Haas commissioned Thomas Hooper to design her Cook Street brothel in 1913. Eve Lazarus photo, 2012

Thomas Hooper once had the largest architectural practice in Western Canada. He designed hundreds of buildings including the Victoria Public Library, the Rogers Chocolates and the Munro’s Books Building in Victoria. And in 1912, the same year he designed Hycroft in Shaughnessy, Vancouver’s Winch Building and submitted plans for UBC, he designed Christina Haas’s, Cook Street brothel.

This is an excerpt from my chapter on the Red Light District in Sensational Victoria.

Cook Street Brothel:

It’s a gorgeous four-square house built in the Classic Revival style. According to the real estate blurb it was remodeled into a five-suite apartment complex in 1945 and it’s the first time the house has been on the market in 55 years. The going price is just under $2 million.

Christina is a shadowy figure. She arrived from California in 1912 at the age of 50 and took over an established brothel on Broughton Street with a steady clientele from the Union Club and Driard Hotel. Business was booming and she decided to move into a more upscale facility in Fairfield. She paid cash for the two lots and took out a building permit in her name and commissioned Hooper to design her brothel.

Thomas Hooper:

Although there is no mention of the Cook Street house in his portfolio, the blueprints are signed by the architect and bear his address. They show a house with three bedrooms, each with a separate entrance and its own bathroom. There are rumours that a secret door once led to a concealed wine cellar.

Neighbours tell stories passed down over the years. The women who worked at the Cook Street brothel wore business attire, and several married, raised families, and went about the rest of their respectable lives ignoring the occasional raised eyebrow and whisper.

Brothel changes hands:

Christina is listed as the owner of the property in the city directories until 1920. The brothel then sold to John Day, a wealthy businessman, and his wife, Eliza Amelia. Day owned the Esquimalt Hotel until it burned down in 1914. He also managed the Silver Springs Brewery and later the Phoenix Brewery. Eliza sold the house after his death in 1944.

Even after Day bought the Cook Street house, his tax notices were sent to Christina’s other brothel on Broughton Street, suggesting that he may have had an ownership stake in both.

Christina’s nephew Earl tells me his aunt sold all her brothel holdings in Victoria in 1919 and moved to Mendocino County to be near her brother John Henry and his wife Eva in Westport. She died in 1938 at the age of 76, and is buried in the Fort Bragg Rose Memorial Cemetery.

Tags brothel, Christina Haas, Driard Hotel, Eliza Amelia Day, Esquimalt Hotel, Fairfield, Hycroft, John Day, Munro's Books, Phoenix Brewery., Rogers Chocolates, Silver Springs Brewery, Thomas Hooper, Union Club, University of BC, Winch Building

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