There aren’t many large office buildings on Robson Street, but this one has been around over 70 years. It received a makeover in 1986, when it got a post-modern appearance designed by Downs Archambault, and a new name as John Robson Place. Our 1974 picture shows it as it was completed in 1948, when it became the Unemployment Insurance Commission offices. Over the years other government departments were also located here, including Indian and Northern Affairs. 

The Vancouver Sun announced the project in 1948. “SIX-STOREY BUILDING FOR ROBSON STREET Preliminary work has begun on a six-storey, $375,000 office building for Alvin Estates Limited at 1145-1155 Robson, between Bute and Thurlow. The building is reported to be for occupancy of a government agency. Contractors are Allan and Viner Construction Company. Swinburne A. Kayll is architect and F. Wavell Urry is consulting engineer. Plans show a six-storey reinforced concrete building with 99 feet frontage and 131 feet depth. Entrances are to be finished in marble and glass block. Provision is made for two passenger elevators.” The picture shows that the builders, who were also the developers, actually built seven floors.

Once completed, (and in fact, while it was being built) the developers leased it to the Federal Government. The conservative member for Quilchena got the Public Works Minister, Alphonse Fournier, to admit that the development was undertaken without any competitive bidding. They had apparently acquired the land for $45,000, spent $450,000 to build it, and promptly sold it to the government for $1,100,000. The minister pointed out that the value of a building permit may not reflect the actual cost, or the additional fitting out, and that the building was a bargain, and the best option available to house the necessary work of the employment department. (He seems to have neglected to respond to the lack of competitive bidding).

These days the space is occupied by a number of businesses; software developers, accountants, a mining company, a travel agency and management agencies and now has retail units at street level

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 778-332 – 1100

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We’re on the lane before Seymour Street in 1961, with Seymour Billiards on our left (at 999 Seymour), and 1002 Seymour across the junction on the right. The billiards hall started life as a repair garage in 1926, designed by Swinburne Annandale Kayll for William and Herbert Boultbee. Just beyond is the edge of a sign for a U-Drive parking lot – seen better in 1981 in an earlier post.

We haven’t found the permit for the two storey stucco building on the right, so we don’t know who built it, probably in 1909. It’s first tenant was Edward MacLeod, a shoemaker who lived on Water Street, who was here in 1910, and joined a year later by James Fraser, a grocer, who lived a block away. The last date that’s easy to trace the occupants of buildings is 1955; in that year the California grocery store was here, as it had been since at least the early 1930s, although in the 30’s it was Harry Chapelas running the store, and in 1955 Ramon Chapelas, who had added a coffee bar.

Down the hill on the junction of Homer, on the CPR Reserve lands released for development in 1909, is the warehouse built by Richard Bowman and occupied initially by the Bogardus Wickens & Begg Glass Company. It’s still standing today, part of the true ‘Yaletown’, although these days it’s an office building over Shopper’s Drug Mart. Leading up to it Polygon Homes built three similarly designed residential towers in the 2000s, and there are also residential towers on the north side of the street, but with a retail base.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 772-19

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In 1926 (or thereabouts) a new car service and parts building designed by Swinburne Annandale Kayll was developed by Boultbee Ltd. Later Clarke Simpkins, owner of the city’s largest Ford dealership, took the building over and used it as his parts and a service facility. By the early 1960s that use had ceased, and in 1963 the building took on a new life as Seymour Billards, owned by Edmonton restaurant operators. Inside there were large charcoal drawings of famous pool players on the walls, with a small snack bar at the back. It was a big space, with 36 full-sized, 6 x 12-foot Brunswick round-cornered tables. Outside was one of the city’s fabulous neon signs, with three sequentially lit ‘9’ balls (to signal the address) above a revolving ‘Seymour Billiards’ name.

By 1981 when these pictures were taken there were fewer patrons for the hall. A Ford dealership (Dominion Motors) was still on the block, but in the former Vancouver Motors building to the north. That too converted to a different use more recently, as Staples office supplies, with office space on the upper floors. The billiards use eventually closed in 1999, and after a period as a parking lot, a new condo building designed by Acton Ostry Architects was completed in 2014.

Image sources: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 779-E03.06A and CVA 779-E03.05A

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This corner of Seymour and Nelson was developed as an auto parts and service business in 1926. Up to then there were houses here, one on the corner built before 1900, and two more to the north built in the early 1900s. William W Boultbee was president, and Herbert N Boultbee vice-president of the company who built the new garage, and they hired Swinburne Annandale Kayll to design the $10,000 building, built by Robert McCoubrey. Kayll was from Manitoba, initially working for several local architects before training in Philadelphia and then fighting in the First World War. He returned to the city in 1919, and practiced with Max Downing, designing Leckie’s warehouse on Water Street in the early 1920s. He was working solo again when he designed the garage.

The Boultbee business imported a variety of named auto parts, mostly from Britain, and offered to service your vehicle using those parts. The founders were brothers; two of a family of ten children. Their father, John Boultbee, brought his family west from Ancaster in Ontario in 1882, and was a signatory to the Petition for Incorporation for Vancouver, and the city’s first Police Magistrate. William, like his father, was also born in Ancaster, but Herbert (who was eight years younger than his brother) was born in Vancouver in 1887.

Both brothers worked for C Gardiner Johnson and Co (shipping agents), and in 1913 Herbert became the managing director, and William the president of the Boultbee-Johnson Company. William had a variety of other interests, including, towards the end of his life, a significant share in the Bralorne gold mine that produced four million ounces of gold over a 40 year period.

By 1944 (above) the building had been given a makeover, and some of the glazing had changed. Herbert Boultbee continued to run the business; William died in California in 1936. A few years after this picture, the business moved to 1025 Howe Street and Clarke Auto Supply moved in. They morphed into Clarke Simpkins, run by Ford of Canada vice-president Clarke Simpkins. He opened his dealership in 1946 to take advantage of a four-year wartime production hiatus that created a frantic demand for vehicles. His showroom was on West Georgia Street with several other dealerships, as we have seen in earlier posts. This building (seen below in 1948) was used as the repair department until the 1960s.

Today 999 Seymour is a condo building designed by Acton Ostry, completed in 2014.

Image Sources: VPL and City of Vancouver Archives CVA 1184-1546

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