Here’s a 1939 image of Burrard Street looking south from West Pender. The street had turned mostly commercial by then, having started life as a quiet residential street, but there were still vestiges of the residential past. On the west side of the street was a two-storey building built in 1910 by E W McLean and Arthur McEvoy. The biggest building in the picture is the Third Hotel Vancouver – the one that’s still standing today.
Leading up to the hotel on the east side were a number of residential buildings, starting on the corner of West Pender with The Glenwood Rooms. They were completed in 1907, and W D Hansford was listed as the manager in 1908 clarified as William Hansford in 1910. William was aged 66, born in Clarksburg (West Virginia) in the USA when he married widow Alice Doster born in Wabash, Indiana, and aged 57 (Her father was Simpson Jones and her mother was Kezia). The wedding took place in BC in 1907, and there’s no sign of them in the city before the year they got married.
We were reasonably sure that the building was designed by Honeyman and Curtis for Mrs E Charleson. This would probably be Eliza Charleson, who lived on Haro Street with her husband Donald in 1911. In 1904 this was the location of their house. Their son Percy was still living at home – he’s the same Percy Charleson who worked on Pender Street and who operated the first stock exchange in the city. Donald developed a building on Granville Street, also designed by Honeyman and Curtis. He was born in Quebec and came to Vancouver in 1885, working in the shipping and lumber industries. In 1889 he was awarded a contract to clear the south side of False Creek by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, and was one of the founders of Christ Church. We’ve been able to confirm that J J Honeyman obtained the building permit for the $20,000 building here in August 1906. It was for Mrs E Charleson, and it was built by Bedford Davidson.
William Hansford almost certainly died before 1911 as the proprietor became A R Hansford and Alice Hansford was identified in the 1911 census living with her lodgers and niece, Marie Jones. In the census there were 40 lodgers living in the building, with a huge range of employment including an American capitalist and his wife, F W Liddle and R M Ward who were both musicians, Mr and Mrs T F Curror, from South Africa, who had no employment, Harry Davidson who was a brickmaker and Mr and Mrs M C McQuarrie – he was a barrister.
At the end of the block, on the corner of Dunsmuir, was the Young Women’s Christian Association building, built in 1905, added to by Dalton and Eveleigh in 1909 and again by Coffin & McLennan in 1913. In between are a number of houses that were already built by the end of the 19th Century. Like Glenwood Rooms would be later, the houses were occupied by a range of professions in 1896: James Harling a cigar maker, A P Judge, a solicitor, Dr Mansell, a dentist, D M Linnard, in real estate, William Kent, who co-owned the Criterion Saloon in the Dunn Block and Captain Reveley and his family including his son, a clerk in a solicitor’s office. Captain Reveley was apparently an agent of marine for the Provincial Government before moving to Vancouver. He seems to have died in the late 1890s, but his widow, Kate, continued to occupy the house.
By the time this picture was taken in 1939 the Glenwood had become the Egremont House Rooms, run by George Robertson who lived there with his wife Marion. Some of the houses were also run as rooms – Mrs L J Shepherd ran rooms at 520. Mrs L Ritchie was living at 530, Mrs M Matthews at 534 and Mrs M V Adams had rooms at 540. W L Howie ran rooms at 544 and G H Stoneham at 552.
Today, closest to us is a Manulife office completed in 1985, designed by Webb Zerafa Menkes Housden Partnership. Next door is Musson Cattell’s Bentall 5 tower, completed in two vertical phases (the top 11 floors in 2007 four years after the lower 23 floors). Across Dunsmuir Street is the rose coloured Park Place tower, also designed by Musson Cattell thirty years ago.
Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 1376-155
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Changing Vancouver 