The Last of the West End Mansions

Heritage Vancouver released its annual top 10 endangered site list today and it spells more bad news for the last of the West End mansions.

The heritage conservation organization has flagged three properties: the Legg Residence at 1245 Harwood Street, Gabriola Mansion at 1531 Davie Street, and three houses that sit side by side at 1301, 1309 and 1315 Davie Street.

I wrote about Vancouver’s West End mansions at the turn-of-the-century in At Home with History: the secrets of Greater Vancouver’s heritage homes. Back then the West End was the place where the wealthy flittered from manor to manor, presenting calling cards, and sipping on lemonade while playing croquet and badminton on manicured lawns.

In 1908 a book with the unlikely title of the Vancouver Elite Directory, reported that 86% of those who rated a listing lived in the West End, while 6% lived downtown and the rest were scattered throughout Point Grey, Kitsilano and Fairview, with a few holdouts still in the East End.

The Abbott House at 720 Jervis was saved when the city gave developers the go-ahead to build two extra floors on each tower as a heritage density bonus in exchange for saving and renovating the old mansion. Unfortunately, the heritage density transfer, which could help save the West End, is a distant memory.

Gordon T. Legg, the managing director of the Union Steamship Company lived at 1245 Harwood, a gorgeous arts and crafts house built in 1899, and right next door to the largest known Tulip tree in the city. Originally the city did a deal with the devil, where the house would be saved in return for a 18-storey tower. It wasn’t a bad compromise, but the pending loss of the 100-year-old Tulip tree upset the neighbours, and in the latest bizarre scenario, we are saving a tree to sacrifice the century-old mansion.

It is a tragic loss to the West End, which as Heritage Vancouver points out, is one of only three estate homes that remain from the turn of the last century, the others are three heritage homes on Davie Street, and the one that I’m most upset about–Gabriola at 1523 Davie.

Most people remember Gabriola as a Hy’s Mansion or a Romano’s Macaroni Grill, but it was originally designed in 1900 by Samuel Maclure for Benjamin Tingley Rogers, the Sugar King. At one time the mansion occupied the entire block with stables, outbuildings and greenhouses. Stained glass was created by the Bloomfields, it had 18 fireplaces, and got its name from the green sandstone on the outside that was quarried on Gabriola Island.

The mansion has been boarded up for several years. Keg Restaurants bought it and announced plans for a restaurant back in 2011. But Gabriola still sits vacant, a target for vandals and a wet dream for developers.

For more on the West End see:

• Our Missing West End Heritage: What were we thinking?
• The West End Guest House: one of the last ones standing
• The Former Houses of Beach Avenue
• The Life and Death of the Englesea Lodge

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