We’ve written about the Rainier Hotel, on the south side of Cordova, and the Boulder Hotel on the north side of this 1969 W E Frost picture. The Boulder was built as a 2-storey building designed by the Fripp Brothers for A G Ferguson in 1890. The Rainier dates back to 1907 and was designed by Emil Guenther for John Quann. Before the Ranier was built this was a two-story wooden building. It started life very soon after the 1886 fire as The Burrard House and then became the Balmoral Hotel in 1890. By 1901 The Quann Brothers had their office in the Balmoral Saloon, and lived on Hornby Street. William (Billy) Quann ran the Balmoral Saloon, and John (who was known as Jack), and Thomas ran the Balmoral Hotel. The Balmoral wasn’t very old when it was demolished – about 20 years old.

Thomas Quann was born in 1845, in New Brunswick, to an Irish father and a mother born in Barbados. He clearly moved to the United States at some point, as his sons, Billy and Jack, and daughter Mamie were shown born in the USA in the 1891 census records. William and Mamie (shown as Mary, the same as her mother, in some records) were both born around 1873, and John in 1875, and Thomas outlived both sons. He arrived with his family in 1886, and was soon running a hotel; (he applied for relief (welfare) for two of his tenants in April 1887). He applied for a license for the Central Hotel on Cordova in 1888. At age 17 Billy was working as a messenger, but soon went into the hotel and bar trade. In 1896 both Billy and Jack were running the Central Hotel, and Jack continued to run it in 1910 when it was redeveloped as the Manitoba Hotel. In 1903 John was running the Merchant’s Exchange Hotel, and the Pacific Bottling Works, distributing Rainier beer. In the early 1900s the brothers branched out into the entertainment business, owning the Majestic, Rose and Maple Leaf theatres.

Both brothers died within a year. Jack’s obituary in the Vancouver Daily World noted his early sporting involvement, and his business interests “Jack Quann, one of the best known business men in the city, as well as a very prominent sportsman, died last night In the General hospital. The late Mr. Quann had been suffering for some time with a weakness of the heart, but it was not thought that the Illness would prove fatal. At the recent race meeting at Minoru Park he was taken ill and was hurried Into the city, where, aftar a few days’ treatment, he recovered sufficiently to allow him to go on a fishing trip to Nanalmo and other points on Vancouver Island. The fishing party were returning to Vancouver last night when the late Mr. Quann was seized with one of the periodical fits, which he had experienced In recent years. When the steamer reached port he was removed to the General hospital, where he died at 9:45. The late Jack Quann was In his thirty-fourth year. A widow and one child, his father, Mr. Thomas Quann, his brother, W. H. Quann, and a sister, are left to mourn his loss. As a lacrosse player he Is still remembered as one of the greatest and most fearless goalkeepers that ever stood between the flags. He has participated in dozens of gruelling battles between Westminster and Vancouver, always acquitting himself with honor. He was conceded to be one of the most enterprising of Vancouver’s business men. He was In partnership with his brother In the proprietorship of the Balmoral hotel when that hostelry was considered to be the rendezvous of all sportsmen, With his brother he was later connected with the ownership of the St. Francis.” Jack’s death was in August 1911, and hundreds of people attended his funeral.

Billy’s death was recorded in June 1912, and the cause of death was noted as cirrhosis of the liver, an ailment often noted in bar owners. Both men had young widows. Billy was married to Lillian, shown as four years younger in 1911, like Billy, born in the US, with sons William and Thomas 16 and 13, born in BC.  Jack was married to Phoebe, although they were missed by the 1911. She was running a tobacco store on Granville Street in 1913, but after 1914 there were no references to any of the family in the street directories. Pheobe Ann Quann (ne Butler) married Robert Mundell in Vancouver in 1914, so that probably explains her apparent disappearance. She was also an American, born in Helena, Montana in 1886 or 1890, and she married John Henry Quann in November of 1909. (When she married Jack she showed her birth as 1886, but her second marriage showed 1890).

Beyond the Boulder are two hotels developed by Evans, Coleman and Evans; the Stanley (designed by Grant and Henderson, and completed in 1907), and the New Fountain, which is an earlier building. All four buildings are still standing today, although the Stanley and New Fountain are being redeveloped behind the retained façades, for a mix of market and non-market rental units.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 447-356

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The Regent, like the Balmoral across the street, is another large commercial hotel developed at the end of the early 1900s development boom. The Regent’s developer, Art Clemes, obtained the building permit for the $150,000 building in December 1912, and it was completed the following year. It was designed by Emil Guenther.

Art Clemes is mentioned in some records as Archie or Archibald, although the earliest record aged 10 in 1860 called him Arthur, living in Victoria, Ontario, where he seems to have been listed as Clemis, rather than Clemes (although the handwriting in the record isn’t clear). Subsequently almost all official records call him Art. He was in BC by 1881, listed as a hosteler, with Esther, his wife (who was shown two years older than Art). In 1882 he was running the B C Express House in Nacomin. (Sometimes it was written as Necomin), which is in Spences Bridge.

By 1901 he was the leading businessman in the town, a small community on the Thompson River, seventy miles west of Kamloops on the main line of the C.P.R. He ran the general store and the hotel, and acted as postmaster. Around the turn of the century he took a holiday in Europe. He probably attended The 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle, where it’s said that he was so taken by a Wolesley car exhibited there that in the early 1900s he ordered one from England. It was shipped via the Horn, as if it had come on the more convenient route across the Atlantic it would have had to be stripped down and crated, and there was nobody in Spences Bridge or Kamloops at that time who knew how to assemble an automobile. It was the first gasoline-driven automobile to run in the interior of British Columbia; here’s an oddly chopped picture of Art from the Archives, in his car.

In the 1901 census Art is listed as hotel keeper and rancher, with his wife Esther and their two domestic servants, Helen and Rachel Oppenheim. Art and Esther were both from England; (Art is shown specifically as being born in Cornwall, and stated his ethnicity as Cornish), and both were shown (inaccurately) to be aged 49. Art was only three when he came to Canada, while Esther had been 19. Their servants were both local, born in Yale. We know where Art’s family first moved in Canada, as his brother Henry, a stationary engineer, was living with the family. He was aged 40, and had been born in Ontario.

Art owned quite a bit of property in Vancouver. He built six brick dwellings at Hamilton Street & Georgia Street in 1903. In 1906 Art leased his ranch to Chinese growers. The Nicola Herald reported that he had leased it to three chinamen. “The enterprising Celestials intend supplying the various railroad camps with fresh vegetables. Rumour has it that $1,000 rental was paid in advance” Art remained in Spences Bridge; and retained his role as justice of the peace there, while developing in Vancouver. In 1908 he partnered with Alexander Pantage to build a theatre on East Hastings, which he continued to own for many years.

In 1911 Art and Esther were still shown in the census living in Spences Bridge, with many employees and lodgers living in the same accommodation (their hotel). They seem to have travelled more, as they visited the US in 1915. Esther died in 1918; her death record confirming she was two years older than Art. Art continued to travel after her death, and crossed from Mexico to the US in 1921. He died a year later, aged 70. The Hotel Regent (as it was called in 1923 when our image was taken), like many Downtown Eastside hotels has seen a steady decline. Today it has a mix of troubled tenants paying welfare rent and an owner unwilling or unable to invest in maintainance. Recently the exterior has been cleaned up, although the interior is still not somewhere anybody would chose to inhabit.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives Hot N37.1 and Trans P151

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We’ve looked at many of the buildings on Water Street on this blog, but somehow overlooked the Terminus. It was completed in 1902 at a cost of $8,000 for W Jones, replacing a building erected quickly after the 1886 fire, possibly designed by Bunning and Kelso (according to the first edition of Exploring Vancouver). They weren’t architects, but they might have been builders; in 1888 Bunning was a carpenter. This attribution of this building thought it dated back to 1887. (There was an even earlier saloon run by Bill Blair before the fire that was originally a restaurant run by George Brew ‘when he wasn’t drunk or in prison’.)

The façade still standing today was designed by Emil Guenther, and for five years (including in our picture) all that was visible was a three storey façade and the side wall propped up with steel bracing after a fire destroyed the building in 2000. Given the ferocity of the fire, it’s remarkable that the front of the building stayed standing. The Heritage Statement still describes it as a propped façade, but that’s very outdated as in 2008 a new development was completed along with the adjacent Grand Hotel to restore the retail use and add condos on the upper floors (and two additional floors set back from the heritage element). The Grand was an earlier building, dating back to 1889, and the owner, Thomas J Roberts, was killed in while attending a card game in 1918, as we noted in an earlier post.

The owner of the new Terminus Hotel when it was built was William Rees Jones; one of six people called William Jones in the city in 1901. He was either born in England into a Welsh family (1901 census) or in Wales (1891 census), and he had arrived in Canada in 1858 when he would have been aged about 15. He was running the Terminus from 1890, buying it from Bill Blair. William Blair was from Maine, and he appears in very early Granville (pre Vancouver) street directories; the first we’ve found him in was in 1882 when he was running the Deighton House, built by ‘Gassy Jack’ many years earlier. Before he arrived in Granville he was in Victoria from 1877. Around 1884 he’d moved up the street to run a saloon at this location, with Blair’s Hall at the back, where dances, meetings (and church services) were held. After he sold the bar, Blair became a general contractor.

In October 1901 the replacement building for the Terminus was announced. The original hotel and saloon weren’t torn down; rather, they were moved to the rear of the site (which hadn’t been redeveloped as a hall after the fire) to clear the space at the front for the new structure.

In what reads suspiciously like an ‘advertorial’ – but which was typical of the day for the thoroughness of the description, the Vancouver Daily Work of 22 March 1902 announced the completion: “On  the Site of a Pioneer Water Street Hotel Rises a Complete Up-to-date Structure. Many people thought that the lot on which the Terminus hotel stood could not be made useable for a hotel. It was enclosed between high buildings on either side and the light was shut off. Since the days when Vancouver was a baby the Terminus had been there. It was one of the first hotels that reared itself phoenix – like above the ashes, and Mr. William, Jones hated to change the locality. He therefore decided that once again the house should arise, and he entrusted the work of making the plans to Emil B. Guenther. The result is that there stands today one of the most complete hostelries in Vancouver on the site of what was the old Terminus. The building has a brick front with stone finishings, with a series of bow windows on the front that give a view direct across the Inlet from the front and also a view each way east and west. The general contractor for the building was E. Cook, the well known contractor, whose foreman on the contract was George W. Maynard. The sub – contractors were: (including heaters in bar for hot water. Cope & Frey; heating, hot water, Leek & Co.; for fixtures, Robertson and Hackett: plumbing. W. Brown; painting. H. Miller; furnishing, Chas. Hach; bedding, Pioneer Mattress Factory, R. F. Campbell, manager.

The architect Emil Guenther, went to Seattle and Tacoma to see if anything had been overlooked. The result is that from his own ideas and what he learned abroad on the old site of the Terminus has arisen the most perfect hotel that is to be found of its kind on the const. It was enclosed on either side by high wholesale houses, and the greatest feature was to secure perfect light. This has been done by the judicious use of a skylight that takes in the whole roof. Through this it has been arranged that there is not a dark room in the house. The main entrance is from Water street, but on either side are entrances to the basement, in which are situated a barber shop and a day and night restaurant. The latter will be under the charge of Mr. W. McArthur. The dining room is connected by speaking tubes and bells with the bar, and that is in itself a credit to local workmanship, it is finished in polished oak with tile floor and gutter. The bar is 40 feet long and the back is designed in a series of arches with half – curved pilasters and capitals. The wainscoting is terra cotta cement with enamelled surface finishing, ensuring absolute sanitariness, and the walls and ceiling are finished in pressed steel in tastefully blended shades, making a complete poem in color. The kitchen is supplied with a flue 8 feet by 1 inches, clear to the top, so that it is impossible for any odor to reach the storeys above. The bedrooms are supplied with good, substantial furniture from the well known house of C. Hach, and all the beds have the “D. P.” springs and the “Jumbo” soft mattresses. The house was open to the public today at 11 a.m., and is many ways as regards completeness and novelties not overlooking, for example, the electric water heaters supplied by Cope & Frey will be of interest to the public generally. Mr. Jones’ confidence in the city is shown, by the fact that he has invested in this building $35,000. Old timers will remember the Terminus locality. Near it was our first church, and on the lot on which it stands was a building in which Sunday services were held in the early days. Those who were here in the old times will remember the gospel hall and will he pleased to know that the man who so freely gave his Premises for the carrying on of any good work in the early days has prospered.”

This suggests Mr. Jones might have been a really ‘old timer’ in the city. There are hints of this elsewhere – a reference in the Archives notes of Major Matthews to “Dissolution of Partnership between William Jones and John Thomas (“Navvy Jack” Thomas – another Welshman), and “Partnership Notice” between William Jones and Joseph Mannion, published in Mainland Guardian, 5 April 1873.” Indeed, looking for references to “Billy Jones” reveals more references to his early saloon, next door to the Granville House Hotel (which he had originally partnered with Mannion to acquire from Ebenezer Brown). In 1874 he was in partnership with Mannion. Despite this we haven’t found any early directory references to William (or Billy) Jones in Granville. At least one interviewee thought he was an American. The first reference to the Terminus is in 1889 when Bill Blair was proprietor before William Jones bought it a year later. We have no idea what William Jones – assuming it’s the same William Jones – did between the mid 1870s and buying the saloon in 1890, but he wasn’t in Granville/Vancouver.

The new hotel’s early history is recorded in the newspapers of the day; a drunk who tried to kick out all the panels of the hotel; underage drinkers identified by the police; theft of a visitor’s bicycle wheel. A more serious case was a 1905 attempt to remove Mr. Jones’s licence because he was present when his barman was serving drink ‘after hours’ when the curtains had been pulled to indicate the bar was closed. (It was during one of the periods in the city’s history when the forces of temperance were trying to restrict the serious drinking that took place). W J Bowser, the lawyer defending the case successfully persuaded the Magistrate that it wasn’t an intentional lapse of the law, as one drinker was resident in the hotel (and therefore a member of the household who could legitimately drink at any time) and the other was understood to be resident – although he had in fact moved to a different establishment a short while before.  In 1906 the Daily World announced “WATER ST. HOTEL SOLD. S. Swoboda, mayor of Wetaskiwin, Alberta, has purchased the Terminus hotel, Water street, from William Jones. Mr. Swoboda has no intention of starting in the hotel business, hut he talks of selling out his extensive interests in Alberta, and coming to the coast. The Terminus is one of the oldest hotels in the city.”

In February 1908 the hotel was mentioned several times when a patron was stabbed. In 1909 the hotel, with 33 rooms, was offered for sale again. Leased at $250 a month, it was offered for sale at $33,000. The licensee, George Patton, was in court later that year, accused of allowing gambling on the premises. The attempts to sell the property don’t seem to have been successful, or Mr Jones had second thoughts as W Jones, was still the owner in 1912 when he had R H Atkinson design an alteration to the store here. The 1911 street directory shows that he wasn’t running the hotel by then; that was R Fiddler and James Thompson. Thompson had run the hotel on his own from 1905 (although he was mis-identified as Johnson that year), but William Jones was shown still living in the hotel, but from 1906 he was in retirement.

At some point the hotel ceased offering the full hotel facilities: In 1912 it was still a hotel run by Robert Fiddes, but by 1914 it was the Terminus Rooms, run by Henry Savinar and in 1917 by H Avoca. The ethnicity of the owners changed over the years. In 1936 it was listed as the Terminus Hotel (rooms) run by G Iguchi. In 1948 the rooms were run by H Summers, and the 1955 listing was for the TERMINUS Hotel (Wong Jun Ming) rooms.

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We have previously reviewed the development of Edward Lipsett’s properties to the left of this picture in an earlier post, and a subsequent follow-up. (We also looked at The Gold House, the hotel that was here earlier). We were fairly sure that the property was developed in phases, with the first being a warehouse and factory for Edward Lipsett, sail maker, costing $10,000 and designed by Dalton and Eveleigh in 1906. This image is undated, but comes from the early 1900s – which would match our understanding of the property phasing. It’s clear that the Lipsett building has two floors at this point, and had a vacant lot to the west, so that matches our understanding that a $20,000 permit in 1912 for a 2-storey brick addition saw the building extended vertically. The subsequent infill to the west came later, initially with just one storey, then completed to almost match the 1906/1912 building.

Beyond is Sven Sherdahl’s Dominion Hotel, developed in 1900 and designed by Emil Guenther. Across Abbott Street is the Winters Hotel from 1907, and on the other side of Water Street is Parr and Fee’s Leeson, Dickie, Gross and Co’s warehouse, built in 1909 (so pushing the date of the picture into a narrower band). Across Abbott is McLennan & McFeely’s warehouse that they leased to the Canadian Fairbanks Company, built in 1905. In 1914 (and not 1912 as the Heritage Statement suggest) the Prince Rupert Meat Company built the seven storey warehouse on the extreme right of the picture next to Leeson’s, which they claimed to design and build themselves. That logically puts the date of the image between 1910 and 1913.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA M-11-53

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In the previous post we looked at the other side of the street. We have looked at a couple of the buildings on this side of the street in earlier posts. To the right of the lamppost in this 1930s Vancouver Public Library image is the Emil Guenther designed Eagle Temple built in 1914, with H S Griffith’s 1912 West Pender Building beyond it – still standing today.

The 1912 insurance map shows all the lots on the west side of Homer developed with houses like the ones on the left of the picture, all also shown on the earlier 1901 map, (when the east side was also all houses). Those are all too old for us to easily trace their building permits. A few were hanging on in the 1930s, although the Eagle Temple had replaced a large house on a double lot. A new building had replaced another of the houses, apparently in 1930 when Vancouver Stationers Ltd first appear in the Street Directory.

O Weber was President and Treasurer, and W J Hagel the vice-president. It’s not entirely clear what their slogan ‘the quality of our printing is consistent with the prices we charge’ meant. Were they inexpensive, but ‘hey, you get what you pay for’? Or expensive, but worth every cent? The company had previously been in business on Granville Street, and the Public Library also has this 1930 Stuart Thompson image that was probably taken on completion of the building. It shows that there was still a house tucked away in the gap between the Eagles Lodge and the new building.

In 2004 Belkin House, a new facility for the Salvation Army was completed, with over 100 rooms and capacity to have over 200 people sleep in the building.

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Here’s another of the single-room-occupancy hotels given a dramatic restoration by the Provincial housing agency, BC Housing, with their private sector partners. The Hotel Canada started life in 1913, according to the building permit, designed by Emil Guenther for T B Hyndman and costing $150,000 to build (by E J Ryan). We’ve seen buildings designed by Mr. Guenther before – he was in the city until 1906, then headed to San Francisco no doubt thinking the disastrous earthquake that year would lead to significant architectural opportunities. He returned to Vancouver in 1912, so this was one of his first jobs after he returned (along with the Hotel Regent on East Hastings).

Our image dates to 1974 when it had become the Marble Arch Hotel. In those days there were two other adjacent buildings. The oldest was the one to the south, designed by Parr and Fee (with their trademark centre pivot windows) in 1911 for S Ollison at a cost of $30,000. Who Mr. (or perhaps Mrs.) Ollison was is a complete mystery – there are no Ollison’s in the city around that period. The building next door (with the bay windows) is more of a mystery – it was owned by T B Hyndman in 1912 when he carried out $700 of repairs – (although it seems to have been missed on the 1912 insurance map); it was called the ‘Ideal Rooms’ in the street directory, run by Elizabeth Quigley, with the Ideal Café downstairs. The café, run by William Rosie, had been here longer, so perhaps Mr Hyndman added the rooms just before he built the hotel.

There appears to be more to the development of the hotel than the permit suggests. A 1915 ‘Daily world’ article, under the headline “CANADA HOTEL SOLD” reported “Mr. T. B. Hindman is Purchaser From Assignee. By order of Mr. Justice Macdonald the assignee of Mr. Charles G. Muller, former proprietor of the Canada hotel, is authorized to accept the offer of Mr. T. B. Hindman to purchase the property. Mr. C. B. Macneill, K. C, representing Mr. Lockyer, manager of the Hudson’s Bay Company, strenuously opposed acceptance of the offer on the ground that there would be nothing in it for the unsecured creditors. Mr. J. G. Hay, for the assignee, stated that it was the best offer that could be obtained and that the preferred creditors would be paid in full by the proceeds of the sale, which was the utmost to be expected In these times. Mr. J. E. Bird appeared for Mr. Hindman and Mr. T. B. Shoebotham for Mr. Muller.” The first year the hotel appears in the street directory, 1914, Charles G Muller is listed as proprietor. By 1916 it’s shown as T B Hyndman, proprietor and J A Hyndman, manager and by 1922 J E Secord was managing the hotel.

We’ve come across Mr Muller before in the context of the Palace Hotel on West Hastings. We thought Emil Guenther might have designed that hotel too, so the two knew each other before the architect tried his luck in California. In 1899 Henry Hyndman of 1075 Burnaby St and Anna Maria Hyndman (wife of Thomas Hyndman) had bought 320 acres of CPR land at $3.00 an acre. In 1901 Thomas B Hyndman and John A Hyndman were both living on East Hastings, and Thomas was working for R G Buchanan Co who sold crockery on Westminster Avenue. Thomas was recorded in the 1901 census as a merchant. In 1904, when he was also active in real estate development, he was vice-president of Woodwards stores. In 1908 Thomas was in real estate, and he and Anna lived at 1075 Burnaby. Thomas Hyndman in 1911 was aged 61, shown as retired and living at 1220 Barclay Street with his wife Anna, and their 29 year old son, John. A 64 year old English gardener, Richard Buckle, and  a Swedish servant, Hilda Friedstrum completed the household. Both parents were born in Ontario and John was born in Manitoba.

We can’t work out exactly what the business arrangement was that saw Thomas Hyndman obtain a permit for a big new hotel (when the economy was slowing down significantly). It appears that an established hotelier, Charles Muller, took the development on, only to see it revert to Mr. Hyndman within a very few years. No doubt the economy, the war and Mr. Muller’s nationality might all have had a part in the situation. Once the war was over, the Lock Financial Corporation were owners of the hotel, managed by T H Lock. In 1930 the name had been switched – the Hotel Canada was run by J Wyard.

Over the years the hotel changed names at least twice more, from 1937 it became the Merritt Gordon Hotel, and from 1941 the Marble Arch. Merritt Gordon was previously the owner of the Invermay Hotel, where we looked at his history. As the Marble Arch, the hotel became increasingly run-down, with the beer parlour one of many in the city that added strippers to bring in clients (said to be at the lower end of the ‘class’ scale). The hotel even got a name check in 1987 when Mötley Crüe named it in its hair-metal anthem “Girls Girls Girls”. Tommy Lee and Vince Neil are said to have spent some time in the bar during the Crüe’s platinum years (our image was probably taken around that time, when the Ollison Block had been demolished). The bar became associated with biker gangs, and a drug deal in the hotel led to successful prosecution of the dealers. A new owner closed the bar in 2002, and by 2013 there were more structural code problems identified with the hotel than any other building in the city. With the recent multi-million dollar structural renovation, and a switch to an earlier name, the building has a much more promising future.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives  CVA 778-372.

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With the attention that Chinatown is receiving at the moment as a few new condo developments replace vacant sites or failed 70s malls and a shuttered casino, no doubt any proposal to redevelop this corner would bring critics out lamenting the loss of another heritage building. Our 1978 (or so) image shows that the red brick structure that’s there today – or at least the exterior – isn’t a heritage building, it’s a rebuild of an older property. Not only that, it shows that in the past Chinatown merchants weren’t nearly as concerned about the Chinese character of Chinatown. The occupants of the building on the corner, C S importers Co Ltd, and the retail store, Trans-Nation Emporium Ltd adopted a distinctly Art Deco Moderne theme to their store decoration, with chrome lettering on a black shiny background and a chrome canopy over the sidewalk. The building dates back to 1904, when Loo Gee Wing, the Chinese merchant who developed throughout Chinatown and beyond, hired Emil Guenther to design the $21,000 building. No doubt Mr Guenther would have been able to identify his building in the 1970s, although the style of decoration might have surprised him. Mr Guenther’s history is apparently hard to confirm due to his name changing and partner hopping, but he was probably German who practiced across the US before settling in Vancouver.

Next door is an almost unchanged Chinatown heritage structure. Well, unchanged since 1926, when the third floor was added. Hodgson and Simmonds designed the recessed balcony addition, a perfect example of a non-Chinese architect interpreting Chinese design for a Chinese client. In fact, Simmonds was Australian. The architectural irony is that the original building was in the Italianate style (designed for a Chinese client). When it was built in 1911 it had two storeys, designed by Campbell and Dawson for Lang Kwan and built by R A McCoullough for $9,500. In 1915 W H Chow was the architect for $400 of alterations to the building for owner Chong Yuen. In the 1920s it became home to the Cheng Wing Yeong Tong Society.

Next door to that is another substantial building (for the time) that had a similar appearance to many of the other commercial buildings built at the turn of the 20th Century in the immediate area. We’re pretty certain the developer was Yip Sang, in 1908, (and the closest in design looks like W T Whiteway’s design for Yip’s Wing Sang Company, on the corner of Carrall Street, and built in 1902). Hing Sing was shown as owner when he obtained permits for $1,000 of alterations in 1909, Lim Duck Chew was listed as an owner in the same year for an address at the western end of the block, Fong Sun was listed as the owner who added partitions in 1910, and Jim Lin in 1916 altered the store front, and also made alterations to the western end of the building in 1917 – but they could all be tenants. It was demolished in the 1990s after a fire, and a new project stalled, and was eventually replaced in 2008 by ‘East’, a Walter Francl designed 6-storey condo building over two retail stores that we saw better in an earlier look at this block looking the other way.

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The permit for this building was approved in 1914, and it says the address of the building was 531-537 Homer Street. The 1914 Street Directory says the address was 515 Homer Street, but two years later it was listed as 535. The building was identified from 1914 on as the Eagle Temple, and the permit was issued to Eagles Hall Building Co for a $55,000 building designed by Emil Guenther. It replaced a pair of houses that pre-dated the turn of he 20th century. The Fraternal Order of Eagles was one of many in the city; the roots of the organization go back to a meeting of six theatre owners who met in Seattle to discuss a strike, and agreed to form “The Order of Good Things”, later changed to reflect the bald eagle emblem. Today the organization’s aims are “to make human life more desirable by lessening its ills and promoting peace, prosperity, gladness and hope.” The Vancouver Aerie #6 was founded in 1898-9.

The Fraternal Order of Eagles were still identified with the building in 1933, but a year later it was known as Victory Hall, a name it retained through the Second World War. (The Canadian Channel Island Society collected items of clothing here to help support evacuated Guernsey children living in England for example). The main floor tenant changed often: in 1933 it was Remington Typewriters; in 1945 an estate agency.

From 1946 to at least 1955 it was known as the Parsons Brown building, the offices of an insurance company with a series of other office tenants including manufacturers agents, an insurance map maker and an advertising agency. By 1975 when this picture was taken it was known as the Vancouver Resource Building. The building was still standing in 1981, but had been demolished by 2001. It was replaced in 2004 by Belkin House, a completely new facility for the Salvation Army with over 100 rooms but capacity to have over 200 people sleep in the building. The scale of the new building is more appropriate to the adjacent West Pender Building designed by H S Griffith in 1912.

Image Source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 780-39

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Today they’re the Palace Hotel and the Chelsea Inn – a pair of apparently mis-matched Single Room Occupancy Hotels. When it was built the whole property was one – the Palace Hotel (so the lack of symmetry is puzzling). In 1907 Schmehl & Muller were the proprietors – William C Schmehl and Charles G Muller. Muller lived at 1127 Robson and Schmehl at 1749 Davie Street. They were the proprietors of the Palace Hotel in 1906 as well – but then it was in a different location at the corner of Hastings and Carrall, with the Palace Restaurant at 345 Carrall. That building – although substantial – was demolished for a new bank. Muller was first seen in the city in 1901, a boarder living (presumably in the Palace Hotel) who had arrived from Germany in 1895 aged 21, and who already was listed as proprietor of the Palace Hotel in 1901 when he was aged 26.

That same year Schmehl appeared in the city for the first time as Schnell, and then Schnehl, in 1902, although he missed the 1901 census in Vancouver. As William has a grave in Mountain View Cemetery, we know he was born in 1876 so was slightly younger than Charles. In May 1901 he married Kathleen, eight years younger and born in Galway in Ireland, and from the marriage licence we know that William was born in Dodge County in the United States. Kathleen was living with her married sister, Phyllis Bailing, in Vancouver two months before her wedding, and had arrived in Canada with her family when she was only 3 years old in 1884. The 1891 census shows her family were already in Vancouver, and her father, Henry Avison, was the park ranger, living in Stanley Park. Kathleen’s early life must have been unusual; her father captured an orphaned black bear cub and chained it to a stump ‘for safety’ in 1888. Avison was subsequently named city pound keeper, and his collection of animals formed the basis for the original Stanley Park zoo. Some reports say he died in 1896, but a recent history of Stanley Park says he actually quit to go to search for Klondyke gold – in 1901 he was still living in the “Unorganized Territories”.

The 1911 census shows that Charles Muller has married Matilda, from Prince Edward Island, and they have three children aged 6, 4 and 1. They also have a domestic servant living with them, and William and Mata Schlitz (William was a grocer) were lodging with them. William Schmehl once again seems to have eluded the census takers, although he’s still listed in the street directory, in the same house on Davie. He’s no longer associated with the Palace; he has a new partnership with Lorenzo D Wright as Schmehl & Wright supplying liquor on E Hastings. Wright had previously been in the tobacco and cigar trade.

From 1912 the Palace hotel seems to have a new proprietor at least every year. Norman Herman was running the hotel in 1912 (and Albert Herman had architect J S Pearce design $10,000 of improvements that year).  The next year it was Pennebera and Masilotto; in 1914 it was D F Pennebera on his own who was proprietor. The only change to the advertisement in the street directory was the name of the proprietors – although in 1913 the Excellent Cafe was noted, with Marino’s Orchestra In attendance. In 1915 Samuel Albert was running the hotel, and a year later Horace Robertson was manager (for 2 years running) while it was owned by Lawrence Reda of North Vancouver. In 1918 it became the Palace Rooms, and John Cameron was managing, and in 1920 the owner was listed as Lorenzo Reda – the year that this VPL image was taken.

The Chelsea Hotel seems to have become Allen’s Rooms around 1912, the initial building operating under that name, managed by Robert Allen (who later owned Allen’s Cafe and Rooms at 814 Granville Street, run by his brother, Osro Allen). Robert was from Quebec, and showed up in the Vancouver street directory in the same year that he opened a Café in 1906, located a few doors away at 57 West Hastings until 1911. He obtained a $25,000 building permit to carry out work on this property in 1909 (when he was listed as R A Allan). Bedford Davidson carried out the work.

After a period when the building was apparently vacant, by 1930 the two separate operations were known as the Oxford Hotel and the Palace Hotel. Today both buildings are still rooms; the Palace owned until very recently by a controversial landlord who was prosecuted for a number of breaches of tenancy law. Our picture from 1978 below shows that there have been very few changes to the buildings over many decades.

Although there’s no known architect for the building, it’s quite possible Emil Guenther designed this version of the Palace – Charles G Muller hired him to design an apartment block in the West End in 1912 on Robson, near Thurlow. Guenther was almost certainly German (although he seems to have changed his name) and practiced in Vancouver up to 1907 when this building was designed, before heading to San Francisco for five years, returning briefly in 1912.

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Although he was Swedish, Sven Sherdahl and his family arrived in Vancouver from Kansas in 1890. He wasn’t exactly young when he arrived – he was already 49 years old. His wife was five years younger, and they had four daughters and one son with them. He managed to avoid the 1891 Census but in 1901 he was recorded as ‘Swain’ Sherdahl – which seems to be how he was known. He settled in a relatively undeveloped part of town, these days it would be Kingsway and 12th Avenue. He built a house there, and created a successful nursery, Rosehill Nursery.

 

1900 was a big year – he became a Canadian, and he also built the Dominion Hotel designed by Emil Guenther. The Dominion, which has the title ‘Sherdahl Block’ near the cornice line, and once featured a turret on the corner also included the Mainland Cigar Factory further along Abbott Street. On the corner of Water Street Louis Rubinowitz had his ‘Department Store’. Rubinowitz’s shop was described in Major Matthews as “an assortment of goods, scattered aimlessly about after the manner of a secondhand store”. Rubinowitz had another store in Steveston, and when an elderly man in the 1920s ran for mayor (spectacularly unsuccessfully). Mr Sherdahl also had a controlling interest in the Astor Hotel.

In 1912, Mr. and Mrs. Sherdahl moved to Long Beach, California, where Mr. Sherdahl died in 1926. These days the hotel is a non-market housing building. It was bought by the Provincial BC Housing agency, who reopened in 2009 after some restoration. The Lamplighters pub sits on the main floor, a contemporary design intended to recall earlier days. The Dominion is said to have had one of the earliest pub licences, approved in 1925.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 492-36

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