The four storey rooming house is called the Station Hotel today, although it’s been a rooming house under a variety of names for many years. It was owned by investment company Living Balance for some years, and has 32 rooms. It was recently acquired by BC Housing, the Provincial agency, to help house Vancouver’s homeless population.

It was given a permit in 1911, when Hugh Braunton designed the $25,000 investment for Albert Pausche. He ran the Horseshoe Hotel, and lived in the East End on Keefer Street. However, there seems to have been a problem with the title, as a year later lawyers published the following public notice: “NOTICE is hereby given that I shall at the expiration of one month from the date of the first publication hereof Issue an Indefeasible Title to the above mentioned lot in the name of Albert Paushe and Joseph Tapello unless In the meantime valid objection be made to me In writing by some party or parties having an Interest In the said property. The Holder of the following Documents relating to the said Lands, viz.: 1. Conveyance In Fee from Sir Donald A. Smith and Richard B. Angus to George M. Bennett. Dated 29th January, 1889. 2. A Conveyance from the said George M. Bennett to Colin Smith, Dated Ist. February, 1889.  3. A Conveyance from the said Colin Smith (by his Attorney, Geo. G McKay) to Edward White, Dated 8th November, 1889.” The initial ownership by CPR Executives isn’t surprising, but the re-trading of the same lot in the same year shows the degree of speculation in the city’s early years.

Albert was from Austria, and was 42 when he built the hotel. His wife, Louisa, was 15 years younger, and from Italy. They had a 2-year-old son, Joseph. They were both shown arriving in Canada in 1906, and they married here in 1907. Their marriage certificate shows his wife as Luigia Bari from Runnianca, Province Novara Italy. Albert had a brother, John, who also ran hotels in Vancouver, and who ran a licenced hotel in Ladysmith in 1908. Albert was 74 when he died in 1943. Louisa died in Vancouver aged 85 in 1969.

The hotel was initially rather oddly numbered because it was developed on a lot between 1020 and 1022 Main Street – and there wasn’t an even number available. Presumably with an eye to reallocating numbers on the block in future, it was numbered as 1012. That was the address of The Bonanza Rooms, initially run from 1913 by John A Gray. In 1918 Mrs S Bunnell took over. In 1920 times were hard; nobody was shown running the rooms, and Albert Pausche was working as a labourer, and his brother John as a carpenter. In 1925 George Clark was running the rooms, and Albert had become a shipwright. In 1930 H Matsumura was running the rooms, and Albert Pausche was a carpenter while his brother had become a labourer with the City. Hatsujiro Matsumura continued to run the rooms, and appeared in the Vancouver Sun in 1936, in a bizarre case where first his wife, and then he was called to give evidence in a divorce case. The Court couldn’t decide how to treat a Buddhist in terms of swearing them in; in the end it was determined that affirmation was the route to follow, and the divorce was duly granted.

In 1942 the Matsumuras would have been forced to leave Vancouver, and the rooms were renamed as the Park Hotel. In 1945 Toy Quon was manager, and a decade later Alphonse Wileyto and Harry Sherban, By the mid 1960s the building had become the Station Hotel, and became one of the many older hotels with shared bathrooms offering low-cost long-term basic accommodation.  The only mention in the press was when a 72-year old suffered smoke inhalation in 1968 when he set fire to his mattress, and was rescued by other tenants. Our image shows it in 1985.

Frequently the store on the main floor was either listed as vacant, or not even mentioned in the street directory. Today it’s home to Bodega on Main, which offers a tapas menu and with restrictions on indoor dining due to the COVID pandemic, added a patio on Main Street during the warmer months.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 790-0666

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