This 1927 image shows the shiny new premises of Messrs Macaulay, Nicolls and Maitland, one of the city’s more successful real estate companies. We looked at the history of the company when we posted about company founder J P Nicolls’ house. Nicolls, originally from Cornwall, England, teamed up with C H Macaulay in 1898 to found a real estate and insurance company. Charles Macaulay was from New Brunswick, and his wife Ethel from PEI. Only three years after the firm was formed, Charles could already afford to have a live-in domestic servant. In 1901 Charles was 32, Ethel was 24, his son Douglas was nine, Donald was two, and their domestic, Margret (sic) Featherstone from Quebec was 31, and her 17 year old daughter Ruby also living with the family.

This new building came after Ronald Maitland had become a partner in the company, in 1922. Ron seems to have come to Vancouver with his parents as a small boy; he was born in 1886, and already living in the city by the 1901 census.

The building was shown as being commissioned by Royal Securities Corp, presumably the Montreal based investment bankers, who had offices on West Hastings. It was designed by Sharp and Thompson. It’s just possible that this wasn’t accurate: Macaulay, Nicolls and Maitland were also each a shareholder in the Royal Plate Glass Insurance Company of Canada, formed in 1926 with three other partners. However, it could be that the ‘Royal’ connection is just a coincidence – Macaulay was general manager of the West Hastings based insurance firm while retaining his real estate partnership. It was built by A Rodger Construction at a cost of $125,000

In 1981 the site was redeveloped as Prime Capital Place a modest brick-clad office building from an era when red brick cladding and midrise office buildings were a popular preference in the business district.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives Bu N298

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We saw an earlier version of a YWCA building in this location in an earlier post. This later building was much bigger; and didn’t really last very long. We think our picture dates from the late 1970s or possibly early ’80s. The low-rise part of the building here dated back to 1951 and was designed by Sharp, Thompson, Berwick, Pratt, while the residential tower was added over a podium with a pool and gym, designed by Vladimir Plavsic & Associates and completed in 1969. In 1995 there was replacement YWCA hotel on Beatty Street, and a new YWCA (designed in-house by Bentall’s Charles Bentall Architects) on Hornby Street. Two years later the old YWCA building seen here was imploded.

After a few years delay the site became part of Bentall Five, a new office tower built in two phases – the top 11 floors were completed in 2007, three years after the first 22 (when sufficient tenants had been found to make the additional space a viable scheme). To enable the phased construction to occur, a staging area had to be retained, and that’s where Musson Cattell Mackey’s Cactus Club Café was built once their design for the office tower was complete.

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There are two buildings here that were replaced in the 1960s, seen here in a 1931 Vancouver Public Library image. On the left is the Essex Rooms at 1033, while next door were the Duchess Rooms, at 1025. These were apparently developed by the A S French Auto Co in 1910, as a $55,000 ‘garage and rooms’, designed by ‘Blackmore’. The Essex Rooms were described as a warehouse when their building permit was issued in 1909 to Crickmay Bros. who hired Honeyman and Curtis to design the $14,000 investment. The main floor was occupied by the BC Anchor Fence Co when the building was completed. Baynes and Horie were the contractors, while Hemphill Brothers built Austin French’s building.

In 1911 the Daily World announced “The A. S. French Auto Co. are now occupying their new commodious quarters at 1027 Pender Street West, and have the largest fireproof and most up to date garage and sales rooms in British Columbia. They have a storage capacity for 600 cars, and carry besides a full line of accessories. The building is of reinforced concrete, absolutely fireproof, and with two floors, 66×132 feet In size. Each floor has a level driveway entrance, the lower being on Seaton street, and the upper on Pender. When the outside decorations are completed, the building will present an extremely attractive appearance. “Any one wanting a Napier car this season will have to hustle.” said Mr. A. S. French, “as the allotment for this year Is almost sold out. Nearly all the cars allotted us are in now, only five or six carloads remaining to be delivered. I have no idea how many Napiers have been sold in Vancouver without looking up the records, but as an instance of the way they are going I might mention that last week I sold over $42,000 worth, including the sales of Saturday night after dinner, which amounted to $19,500. We are open for business day and night. Besides the Napier we also handle the Stoddard – Dayton cars, which I consider the best car on the market for the money. The Napier is a British built car.”

Fred and Alf Crickmay were customs brokers, The had offices in the Pacific Securities Building, across from the customs building and overlooking the harbour. Fred had arrived from England in 1886, and by 1901 were already successful in the brokering business. Fred shared a house that year with his two older sisters. By 1912 he was also managing director of the BC Anchor Fence Co, and had moved to Shaughnessy Heights. Alfred had arrived in 1888, and was married with two children in 1901, with a 19 year old Japanese servant called Verna. By 1912 he had moved to North Vancouver.

A few years after construction in 1915 the Duchess Rooms had become the Driard Hotel, managed by J K Ramsay, while the Essex Rooms had Mrs E T Armstrong as proprietor. A S French continued in business, switching to selling the Overland cars in 1916 (at only $850), and in 1922 the Chandler, Cleveland and Liberty Six lines of vehicles. His father, Captain George French (whose warehouse we saw in an earlier post), Austin, and Austin’s son, (also George) were all associated with the company.

In 1978 the 26 storey Oceanic Plaza office building was completed here. A later cousin to the Guinness Tower across the street, it was developed by British Pacific Building Ltd and designed by Paine and Ching (evolved from Charles Paine and Associates who designed the Guinness Tower across the street). Where the building stood is now a plaza, with the 2002 Government office building (named the Douglas Jung Building) to the east, fronting Burrard Street.

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We’re looking up Beatty Street from Smithe Street. These warehouse buildings date back over a century, and this 1926 image shows them already looking well used. On the corner is the $25,000 1910 warehouse designed by Thomas Hooper for J McMillan – although the insurance map and the street directory identify the company as W J McMillan and Co Ltd. Next door, in the same year, Thomas Hooper also designed the warehouse for E G Prior and Co, costing $21,000. The third warehouse in the row was another Hooper design, also in 1910 costing $22,000 for J B Campbell. That was shown (inaccurately) as being used by the McCampbell Storage Co on the insurance map. Baynes and Horie had the contracts to build all three buildings.

The McMillan warehouse was associated with the Saskatchewan Flour Mills Co. but was developed by a firm of wholesale grocers. W J McMillan was born in Restigouche, in New Brunswick, in 1858 and came west, initially to Sacramento, then Oregon before Victoria in 1883. He arrived in Vancouver in 1888 as a produce merchant, although he had already acquired land in the city. As he moved from selling produce to wholesaling his brother, Robert McMillan became a partner, and the business incorporated in 1907 adding E J Deacon as Vice-President. The business prospered, and they shipped as far as Yukon and Alaska. Before they moved to this new building they occupied one on Alexander Street.

We have also seen the earlier building occupied by E G Prior’s hardware company. Prior was a Yorkshireman who originally trained as a mining engineer, and worked in the Nanaimo coal mines from 1873. He was appointed Inspector of Mines in 1877, living in Victoria, representing that city in parliament from 1886 (and establishing his company a few years earlier on Yates Street). Prior was elected an MP in 1886 but lost his seat in 1901 because of violations of the Electoral Act. In 1902 he became Premier of BC, only to be dismissed in 1903 following a charge of conflict of interest by ensuring his hardware company received Government business. He remained an MLA until his defeat in 1904, the same year he failed to be elected to a federal seat. He was appointed lieutenant-governor of BC in 1919, only to die in office in 1920.

John Bell Campbell was born in Woodville, Ontario, and his father moved from there to Vancouver in 1891, having sold his carriage building business and retiring, eventually joined by all five sons. J B was the eldest, initially training as a blacksmith and then working for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. He later moved to Atchison and worked for the Missouri Pacific Railway. In 1898 he moved to Vancouver, with the initial intention of heading to the Klondike. Instead he opened a storage business, growing to the point of building his own warehouse. In 1910 he organized The Campbell Storage Company, Limited, which was incorporated with him as the president; his brother, Gregor L Campbell, as the vice president and his son, Charles E Campbell, as the secretary and manager; while his son, John G, and brother Charles were directors. In 1921 they sold out to Mainland Terminals, part of C P Railways operations. The Campbell family were very active in the city’s life. J B Campbell was elected alderman for four years between 1907 and 1911. He stood for a provincial seat in 1909, but wasn’t elected. In 1910 he was made shipping master for the port of Vancouver. His extraordinarily comprehensive 1913 biography revealed that “Mr. Campbell is five feet eleven inches in height and weighs one hundred and eighty-five pounds.”

His son, Charles went on to own the Vancouver Daily World for three years having worked for the family business from 1910 until it was sold. Previously he had been part-owner of the Sun, and after selling the World in 1924 he founded another paper, the Star, only to sell that after 6 weeks to Victor Odlum. He moved to Alberta, bought the Edmonton Bulletin in 1925 and stayed for many years.

The McMillan warehouse today is home to a college offering courses in gaming, graphics, fashion and interior design. The Prior building was added to and converted to 21 artist live/work strata apartments in 1999, while the Campbell building was one of the earliest residential conversions of an industrial building, with 37 rental apartments built in 1989.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives Bu N258

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Here’s the Pender Hotel in 1977, although at that time it was called the Wingate Hotel. Today it has a new name, Skwachays Lodge, and it’s effectively a new building. It was first a new building in 1913 when it was called the Palmer Rooms and it was an investment property designed by W T Whiteway for Storey and Campbell. They were owners of a manufacturing company making saddles, harnesses and trunks, with a new warehouse and manufacturing building just up the street on Beatty Street. We looked at the owners of the company when we described the history of that building.

This was a $40,000 investment, which was only a fraction of the budget that the same architect had three years earlier for the World Building, (today known as the Sun Tower), just across the street. Whiteway still managed to add some fancy architectural details in terra cotta with some elaborate pressed metal work on the cornice. Structurally the building wasn’t sophisticated – steel columns supporting millwork floors. In 1946 it was acquired by Lai Hing, who lived in the building and operated his hotel business under the Wingate Hotel name for over 30 years.

More recently it was acquired by B C Housing, one of over 20 SRO buildings that were bought to stabilize the stock of older, cheaper rental space, and to improve the state of the buildings, both structurally and in terms of facilities. After years of neglect (and with some harrowing stories of former activities in the building), the Pender Hotel was the only one found to be beyond repair. Instead a completely new building was constructed in 2012 behind the original (and now seismically stable) façade. Joe Wai, who designed the adjacent native housing building to the east, was the architect.

Today the building is run by the Vancouver Native Housing Society, and provides 24 housing units for artists and 18 hotel rooms, each one designed by first nations artists on a specific theme with names like the Hummingbird, the Moon and the Northern Lights suite. They’re available for first nations medical stay guests as well as tourists. As a social enterprise, the hotel needed at least 50% occupancy, but initially that wasn’t being achieved. The idea of adding the themes made all the difference, and now the hotel is recognized around the world and in high demand. As well as the first nations designed rooms there’s a sweat lodge on the roof, as well as a totem pole called ‘Dreamweaver’, carved by Francis Horne Sr, and a Haida designed screen by Eric Parnell as well as a Fair Trade Gallery at street level.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 1135-19

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We saw these warehouses on Beatty Street as they were in 1927 in an earlier post; here they are as they were in 1974.

On the left is Storey and Campbell’s 1911 warehouse, designed by W T Whiteway which cost $60,000 to build. Jonathan Storey and Roderick Campbell, Jr., were both from Ontario, and in 1892 founded Storey and Campbell which began by selling leather items like harnesses, saddles, and trunks. They initially acquired the saddle-making business of D S Wilson, who moved to Los Angeles; Storey and Campbell expanded the scope of the business over the years – in 1921 their listing said they dealt in shoe findings, leather harness and saddlery, trunks, bags, valises and gloves. The street directory makes it clear that this was a significant manufacturing operation that was large enough to employ a chauffeur and an elevator operator as well as many saddlemakers and leather workers. The advert on the right is from 1932, when they had added golf bags to their range.

The historic building statement claims “As times changed and horses and wagons were replaced, the company also became sole agents in British Columbia for Studebaker commercial trucks. They eventually covered the area from Vancouver to Winnipeg.” We can find no evidence of that at all – a series of dealerships had the Studebaker brand sales over the years – none of them were Storey and Campbell.

In 1901 Jonathan Storey was aged 32, two years older than Roderick Campbell, who was married to Annie. The street directory said he was called Johnathan and put him in a new house at 1771 Haro Street, the same as the Campbell family, with the saddlery business based at 154 West Hastings. Annie had previously been Annie Storey, and the partners were brothers-in-law.

The Campbells moved to a house on the 2000 block of Haro, but Roderick died unexpectedly in 1919, after an operation to remove an impacted tooth. His will was complex, and led to an internal family split. Annie Campbell had to sue her brother, as the Daily World reported “Mrs. Annie Campbell, 1001 Georgia street west, widow of the late Mr. Rod Campbell, is asking the assistance of the court in an attempt to compel her brother, Jonathan Storey, the defendant, to sell property, which they own jointly, and with the proceeds to purchase her interest in the firm of Storey & Campbell Limited. Mrs. Campbell estimates her interest at $159,200.

Following the death of her husband, November 22, 1919, Mrs. Campbell stated today she discussed with her brother the proposal that he should acquire her interest in the business. The agreement was verbal, she said, and was made during the course a trip in her automobile in July, 1920″.

We don’t know how the case was settled, but Annie lived on until 1947, and in 1921 Jonathan Storey was still managing director of the company (as he was in 1951), and was also running the Vancouver Trunk and Bag Limited based on Charles Street. William A Cambell was vice-president of the company, and lived in the Hotel Vancouver – although as far as we can tell he wasn’t a relative of Roderick.

Like some others on the street, the warehouse was constructed with a steel-frame and exterior brick walls, which provided a measure of fire protection. Unusually for the time it had a sprinkler system and was connected with the fire department. There was a showroom and offices on the ground floor and mezzanine. Loading and unloading occurred at the lane and railway tracks, with a large freight elevator next to the loading dock. The building’s storefront underwent alteration in 1940, designed by architect Thomas Kerr, known for the design of several local theatres. Storey and Campbell remained in the building until 1951, when they sold the dry goods business to the Gordon Mackay Company Ltd. of Toronto, reportedly the largest textile distributor in Canada at the time. The building was converted to 48 apartments in 1996, designed by K C Mooney.

Next door, in the centre of the picture, today’s Bowman Lofts building was converted to residential use in 2006, 100 years after it was first built. The original building was five storeys (although seven on the lane as there’s a significant grade drop, and the rail sidings at the back of the warehouses were over 20 feet lower than Beatty Street). It was developed by Richard Bowman, whose history we examined in relation to another warehouse he built on Homer Street. He operated Bowman’s storage, with a warehouse on Powell Street, but this building was never occupied by his storage business. We haven’t been able to track the architect of the original structure, but seven years later another two storeys were added, designed by F Rayner and costing $5,000, but the building you see today was severely damaged by fire in 1929 and rebuilt in 1944 with a new façade designed by Townley and Matheson.

The building was initially occupied by two manufacturing companies owned by prominent businessman W J Pendray: the British Columbia Soap Works and British America Paint Company Ltd. (BAPCO), both headquartered near Pendray’s home in Victoria. The soap works was sold to American commercial giant Lever Brothers after Pendray’s death in 1913. The building remained the local warehouse for BAPCO Paints for many decades. It was also associated with the Vancouver Rubber Co, later Gutta Percha & Rubber Co. Ltd. The flammable nature of these industrial products was the cause of a fire that gutted the building in 1929. A third company, Tilden, Gurney and Co also occupied the building when it was first built. They were an Ontario stove manufacturer, based in a huge building complex in Hamilton. Miller & McDonald, a sash and door company occupied the rear of the premises. In 1907, James Little, the janitor of their premises trapped his foot between the floor and the elevator. It took an hour for the firemen to find him, and his leg had to be amputated, and it was unclear whether he would survive. The newspaper of the day published all the gory details: “While at work greasing the guys of the elevator the ladder on which he was standing slipped, throwing him in such a position that his foot was caught by the moving elevator, horribly mangling it and breaking the bone of his leg just above the ankle. No one else was in the building at the time of the accident, and it is supposed Little lay suffering for more than an hour before being discovered. The ambulance from the Vancouver general hospital was – telephoned for but it was fully thirty minutes before it arrived. It came without a surgeon and with only one man, the driver. No one was there to relieve the injured man. weak from loss of blood and suffering excruciating pain. T. Smith, a glazier for Miller & McDonald, volunteered to accompany the poor old man to the hospital. On the way a freight train at the Beatty street crossing blocked the street for several minutes. No effort was made to break the train to allow the suffering man to be hurried to the hospital It was found necessary to amputate the foot. The patient’s condition in precarious owing to the advanced age of patient. James Little was employed as janitor by Miller & McDonald Sash and Door company. He is seventy – five years of age and has been in their employ for about two months, he has no relatives as far as known.”

The Paint Company commissioned the 1944 rebuild, but later the building changed to clothing manufacturing and offices. A two-storey addition, set back from the facade, was constructed as part of the building’s rehabilitation and conversion to condos, designed by Ankenman Marchand and Gair Williamson Architects.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 778-6

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This has to be one of the city’s lesser known hotels. We took the picture when there were no leaves on the trees – taken now the building is almost impossible to see. Built in 1935, and designed by H S Griffith, it still has the name it was given when it was opened. For some reason the current hotel website believe it dates back to 1926, but through to the early 1930s there were three families living in a property owned by the Royal Trust Company. Previously the house had been owned by Major Barwis, who added a garage in 1911. Our Vancouver Public Library image dates back to 1943.

William Bailey Barwis was the manager of the Vancouver office of the Manufacturers’ Life Insurance Company, born in Magantic in Quebec and resident in a house here from 1908 to 1918. In 1936 this address appears for the first time in the street directory as the Buchan Hotel, shown as being managed by Mrs L L McCallum, (although Charles B McCallum is listed as the manager elsewhere in the same directory).

It’s claimed that the hotel was named after novelist and politician, John Buchan. As Baron Tweedsmuir he visited Vancouver twice, in 1936 and 1939, having been appointed Governor General of Canada in 1935, the year the hotel was being built. On his second visit Lord and Lady Tweedsmuir visited the City of Vancouver Archives and met Major Matthews – an event appropriately recorded in a photograph in the Archives today. This is one of the later designs of H S Griffith, who designed dozens of Victoria and Vancouver commercial and residential projects over a period of over 30 years.

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This is the Hambro Building which dates from the 1920s. In 1930, when this image was shot, A H Stephenson & Co occupied the corner unit. Before 1927, when they moved in, the Reliance Financial Corporation were here in 1926, managed by R R Knight, and a year earlier Carter’s Oriental Trading Co, managed by Miss M U Alexander, and a year earlier Radio Specialties Ltd, who seem to have been the first tenants in the new building in 1923.

Although the Hambro name is generally associated with the merchant bank founded in London by the Danish Hambo family, we haven’t been able to confirm any specific connection. Instead, Patrick Gunn tracked down the building permit to Pemberton and Sons, hiring architects Downing and Kayll and builders Hodgson, King & Marble in 1922 for this $29,000 investment. The Hambo name was only associated with the building for the first two years until 1925. Pemberton & Son (or inaccurately, Sons) were a Victoria-based real estate and insurance brokerage, founded in 1887. The Insurance part of the business moved to Vancouver in 1910, based in the Pacific Building just north of here at Howe and West Hastings, developed by W A Bauer and later known as the Pemberton Building. As the Howe and Dunsmuir building was only single storey, we assume it was purely an investment by the Pemberton’s, who also operated the Pemberton Trading Co and significant financial operations in the 1920s

By 1935 A H Stephenson were still in the building. In 1927 they were real estate agents, as they were in 1935, (although they were also insurance agents by then) E J Gibson had also moved into the building. They were stock and bond brokers, managed in 1935 by Glenn S Francis. The company seems to have been established by a Spokane ‘mining man’, and the company appears to have been involved in mining stocks. Quite what the audience were tracking on the huge blackboard in this Stuart Thompson image seemed a little puzzling, but a 1936 newspaper report from Spokane suggests an eager Vancouver audience: “To aid in the relief of business in the E J Gibson office at Vancouver B C swamped by the volume of trading, Miss R E Nolting, cashier of the Spokane office, flew by the Northwest Airlines and connections yesterday morning. She reported by telephone the office there filled and besieged by a crowd that was massed back in the street. The boom, but a few days old, was touched off by the reportedly sensational strike in Minto Gold. It extended to other issues”. Minto Gold Mines Ltd. mined the Minto Property in the Bralorne region of BC for gold, copper and lead between 1934 and 1940. Historic production was reported as 17,558 ounces of gold, 21,327 lbs. of copper and 124,421 lbs. of lead. E J Gibson also had an office in Butte, Montana, another mining centre.

Today this is the northern part of the Pacific Centre Mall, completed in 1990 with an 18 storey office tower designed by Zeidler Roberts Partnership.

Images sources: City of Vancouver Archives Bu N510 and CVA 99-4719

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Our previous posts looked at the Women’s Building on Thurlow Street that became Oil Can Harry’s club in the 1960s. Before that building, there was a house here, built around 1894, and seen here in an image at the Vancouver Public Library dating from around 1900.

William and Mary Henderson Garden arrived in Vancouver from Helensburgh, Scotland, via Liverpool and a cross Canada train trip in April 1889. William opened up Garden and Sons Wholesale Tea and Coffee on East Hastings and Carrall. The Ceylon Tea Co (who also sold coffee), run by Charles Gordon was on the same block of Carrall Street (also listed as the Albion Tea Co).

The Garden family, (William and Mary and their two sons William and John) lived on Richards Street, but moved by 1895 into this new house at the corner of Thurlow and Alberni Street. Eve Lazarus has more about the family on her blog, including a wonderful family picture of William and Mary riding around Stanley Park on tricycles. William Garden died in 1897, but in 1901 his widow was still living here, along with John, manager of the Hamilton Tea Co, and William a clerk with the Hudson’s Bay Company. Two years later John was a salesman with William Ralph, and a year after that William and his mother had moved to Broughton Street and his brother John had apparently briefly left the city. In 1905 Jack Garden was living with his mother on Broughton, and William had his own house, initially on 7th Avenue, and by 1911 in North Vancouver where he lived with his wife Harriet and sons Hugh and Jack, aged four and two. Like many in the area, William now worked in real estate. Mary and her son Jack had moved to Haro Street; Jack was now bookkeeper with the Terminal Lumber and Shingle Co.

After the Garden’s moved out it was home to William Lamont Tate, who by the time he moved here was described as a retired sawmill and lumber baron, having sold his mill to the Rat Portage Lumber Co in 1903. During the mid 1890s he lived in Fairview, where his sawmill also operated, run with three sons. Like the Garden’s, Mr. Tait was a Scot, born in Dumfrieshire in 1847. He went to school in New York, and arrived in Canada in 1863. He operated mills in Gravenhurst and Orillia, Ontario, before moving to Vancouver in 1891.

Early memories of the mill were of a shingle mill – Major Matthews recorded that “Tait’s Mill (was) a small sawmill on the shore exactly where the bridge reached Third Avenue, and a few feet to the west of it; the mill was in operation in 1888 at the time the first bridge was built.” If the date is accurate, Mr. Tait acquired a mill that was already in operation. The bridge was on Centre Street (which was Granville Street), but on the south shore of False Creek. When he first started, Mr. Tait’s equipment was modest: W H Gallagher recalled “Tait’s little portable mill? He didn’t build it; he just set it on the ground; he was head sawer, tail sawer, and everything else. When the saw took a cut you had to wait two or three minutes for the boiler to get up steam before it would take another cut.”

Mr. Tait hired Parr and Fee to design two investment properties, The Manhattan (across the lane from this house) and The Orillia, further east on Robson Street. His other major investment, also designed by Parr and Fee, was his home, Glen Brae, an enormous house in Shaughnessy completed in 1910 at a cost of $100,000. (Today it’s the Canuck Place children’s hospice).

When the Women’s Building was built to replace this house, it appears that the house was moved rather than demolished. There’s a 1956 image in the City Archives of the back of the house, looking somewhat the worse for wear, but still standing.

As we noted earlier, today there are up-market retail stores in the Carlyle, a residential condo building completed in 1988 and given a significant retail renovation in the past year.

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