Sometimes the Vancouver Archives have the wrong location identified on an image. This 1981 shot should win some sort of prize for being titled ‘1200 block Richards, west side’. Actually it’s the 1100 block of Seymour, showing the east side.

On the corner was Buller’s Glass, dealing in windshields and sunroofs. This was almost entirely a commercial area, with a mixture of light industrial and service businesses in modest and cheaply built structures. The location on the corner of Davie and Seymour looks like it had started life as a gas station, and indeed, in the mid 1950s it was home to R Holbrook’s garage, run by Ray Holbrook. In those days there were a great many automobile focused businesses around here, including parts suppliers and body shops. That was still true in the 1980s, and it was also true in earlier years: this was the location of Consumers Tire Co for over twenty years through the 1930s and 40s.

In this 1937 Vancouver Public Library image the building’s original architecture can be seen, along with the huge advertisement for Seiberling Tires, an American brand owned by Frank Seiberling who had originally founded Goodyear in 1898. The building first appears in 1929, which would seem to fit in with the tiled mission style of the canopy.

At the far end of the block are the Lightheart Apartments, completed in 1910 by William and Joseph Lightheart on the site of the family’s sash and door factory.

Today this is Emery Barnes Park, named after former BC Lion, social worker and NDP MLA who was the first black politician in Canada to be elected Speaker of a Legislature. The site was acquired over several years using funds accumulated from Development Cost Levies from the surrounding market residential towers. The corner was the final, third phase of the park’s construction. In its final years the garage was used as a dry cleaning establishment, so the potential for pollution of the site was particularly high given its previous automotive uses over many decades.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives  CVA 779-E07.15

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To the north of Emery Barnes Park there is a 1910 building which these days is called Brookland Court. It was built by two brothers, who are referred to in the architectural history books as ‘the Lightheart Brothers’. William and Joseph Lightheart were builders who designed their own developments and owned the sash widow factory that was on the site before they built the apartment building. Two other brothers are sometimes mentioned in passing as well, but there were in fact at least six different Lightheart brothers, all of whom ended up living in Vancouver and all apparently involved in construction and development. Strangely, none of the brothers seem to be mentioned in any of the contemporary biographies of worthy citizens, but at least seven of their apartment buildings are still standing today.

In 1901 William and Joseph Lightheart had both recently appeared in Vancouver and both lodged with James A Johnston and his family; 25 year old William working as a builder and his 23 year old brother Joseph as a carpenter. They appear in the 1901 City Directory at 604 Hamilton Street, which presumably was their works yard. Their family roots were in Nottawasaga, Simcoe in Ontario, (on Lake Huron). In 1901 William built a house on Burrard Street and in 1902  he built a house for George Whatmore on 8th Avenue. Joseph built a house in the same year on Burrard Street for himself, and it was a substantial house too – it cost $2,200.

There’s a period where the city’s building permits have been lost, so we don’t know for certain that this building is their first major investment, but it looks to be so. William’s wedding in Escondido in 1906 was mentioned in the Daily World, as was George’s wedding in 1907. Various house-building projects were noted by several of the brothers. In 1911 advertisements started to appear for the newly completed Lightheart Apartments, offering both furnished and unfurnished rooms.

In the 1950s the building was known as the Brooklyn Court Apartments. At some point an additional floor was added, and in in 1989 major renovations were carried out that reduced the number of units to 86 self-contained apartments of non-market housing.

Image source: BC Archives D-09176

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