Archive for the 'Heritage' Category
Vancouver’s Yale and Cecil Hotels
January 10th, 2008 Categories: Heritage, Real Estate News, Vancouver Real Estate
Drove by Downtown Vancouver’s famous Yale Hotel yesterday and saw a Rezoning Developement Permit.
So Idid some research and here’s the scoop. (if you live downtown you will know they are located at the north end of the Granville Street bridge).
Bought for about $10 million in 2006, the Yale will be deemed heritage by City Hall, whereby it will be upgraded and retained, including the Yale Pub. Rize Alliance Properties will retain and upgrade 44 subsidized housing rooms at the Yale and have single room occupancy (SRO) zoning. The rooms will then be given to the City. In return, it is expected that the City will allow 165,000 sq.ft. tower, instead of 100,000 and ask for 255 to 260 ft tall tower instead of the origianal proposed 225 ft.
The City will have to approve the zoning from DD to CD and it is possible the project will be at risk due to the backlog in rezoning.
What do you think of this idea? Happy to see the Yale survive?
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Kitsilano Elementary School
January 8th, 2007 Categories: Heritage, Kitsilano, Vancouver Real Estate
Kitsilano is home to some of the earliest schools to be established in Vancouver,
These elementary schools, with their British colonial names reveal the history and bias of the culture of the people who first built this city. Times have changed, but the old school buildings remain active, populated and well-used; they are part of the historic atmosphere of life in the Kitsilano neighbourhood.
One of the first schools in Vancouver is Henry Hudson Elementary, established in 1911 and still located at 1551 Cypress Street (on Cypress and Cornwall). It was named after the arctic explorer who also gave his name to Hudson Bay, and to the Hudson’s Bay Company (now HBC) the cross-Canada department store chain that grew out of the original fur-trade. The original 8-room school that became Henry Hudson Elementary was built in 1911-1912 at the cost of $48,000. Kitsilano’s population was expanding, and the school was overcrowded within a year, so an additional eight rooms were opened in January, 1914. Since then, a gymnasium building was also added in 1950.
Further west, General Gordon Elementary School was opened in 1912. Originally named for a British General killed in Khartoum in 1885, the school’s name has been shortened and is now simply known as Gordon Elementary. Now there is emphasis on social responsibility and literacy, and the school offers late French immersion program for grades 6 and 7. Still in the original building, the school is located at 2896 W. 6th. The photo doesn’t do the school justice, and here’s an example of what they are doing now. The school’s “Green Again” project has involved the entire community. An active Greening Committee of parents, staff and children have coordinated community and school board resources to build a butterfly garden, grass covered berms, large tree plantings, concrete picnic tables, a shade garden, and a wonderful circle of pavers. Weekend work parties, student plantings and large construction work by the school board are ongoing as they redefine the meaning of “schoolyard”.
Lord Tennyson Elementary School at 1936 W. 10th, was also opened in 1912. Named after the 19th century Poet Laureate of England, the school now offers full French immersion for elementary grades, and has very strong parent involvement. The classic historic school building is now surrounded by a park-like playground, as you can see in the photo above.
In the early part of the 20th century, Kitsilano was growing at a tremendous rate, and still more schools were needed. What is now Bayview Community School, at 2251 Collingwood Street, was founded a few years later, in 1914. In a lovely location, this school has become a full community school of children, staff, parents, volunteers, community members and outside agencies. They who come together to provide a safe, caring, mutually respectful, challenging and welcoming educational environment.
In the days these schools were originally established, there wasn’t the multicultural diversity, French immersion or broad educational values that the Kitsilano elementary schools feature today. Now these historical buildings house elementary students who are encouraged to develop not only their intellectual potential but also the physical, social, emotional and aesthetic potentials as well.
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Kitsilano’s Penguin House
December 8th, 2006 Categories: Heritage, Kitsilano, Vancouver Real Estate
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Some Kitsilano History
November 6th, 2006 Categories: Heritage, Kitsilano, Video
I decided to have a little fun with video and do a few video blog postings about Kitsilano. Because I’m so very interested in history, I’ve started with Sam Greer, the first owner of the area after the CPR. Here’s a photo of Greer’s Beach just after the turn of the century.
I’m standing around the same spot here in this video:
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Kitsilano Streets Named after Trees - Arbutus Street
October 15th, 2006 Categories: Heritage, Kitsilano, Vancouver Real Estate
Arbutus is a quintessential West Coast tree, and is a most fitting tree name for a street in the Kitsilano neighbourhood. On Arbutus street, just north of Broadway, is the small converted corner store: Arbutus Market. Now a coffee shop, it exemplifies the feeling Vancouverites have come to associate with Kitsilano.
Arbutus Street in Vancouver bears the name of an extraordinary broad-leafed coastal tree, with a magnificent twisting shape and stunningly coloured peeling bark. The subject of much painting and photography, it is Canada’s only evergreen hardwood and is only found here on the West Coast. Easily recognized by its dramatically twisting branches, leaning, crooked shapes, and rugged form, the arbutus can grow up to 30 metres tall, and has been known to live to 500 years. Its dark leaves are glossy and leathery, and its peeling red-brown bark reveals a smooth greenish to cinnamon-red trunk. The arbutus flowers in drooping dense white clusters in spring, attracting bees with their strong honey scent. Waxwings and robins eat the berry-like fruit of the arbutus, which is a bright orange/red.
The arbutus is also known as Madrone or Madrona, and is very closely related to the “Strawberry Tree” of the Mediterranean. The tree was known in ancient times: Pliny gave the tree the name of Arbutus; Horace praised its shade and Ovid praised its ‘blushing fruit.’ Virgil recommends young arbutus shoots as winter food for goats and for basket-work.
The wood itself is prized by west coast woodworkers, and many examples of exquisite carving and wood-turning show the beauty of the arbutus hardwood. Tannin is taken from the leaves, bark and fruit, and a brown vegetable dye is prepared from the bark. The fruit is rarely eaten.
Here, Arbutus is often found on exposed rocky bluffs overlooking the ocean, and as it doesn’t like shade, it is also seen growing tall in clearings. It can survive our harshest climate: cold, wet and windy with snow in winter and hot droughts in summer. The shape and glossiness of the leaves allows heavy rainwater to run easily off their surface. The tree survives drought by growing burls that store water for release when needed, or by letting a branch or part of a branch slowly die off so that the tree can live.
Salish First Nation honors the arbutus tree as their Tree of Knowledge because it knows how to find the sun. Its search for sunlight is shown in its bending around for optimum light exposure, even growing horizontally to reach the most light. Beautiful in the rains of winter, the arbutus seems to shine with rich depth of colour in its bark and the deep green of the evergreen leaves.
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The Character of Kitsilano
June 12th, 2006 Categories: Heritage, Kitsilano
Much of the character of Kitsilano is drawn from the historic houses that can be found while walking the tree-lined streets. As well, the landscaping and gardens of the homes here reveal wonderful examples of West Coast gardening - from Zen to English gardens.
One lovely example of Kitsilano character can be seen on Stephens Street, where many houses have been listed as heritage buildings by the city. Take a walk on Stephens Street, and in particular check out these blocks: 1600, 1800, 1900 with an eye for the heritage character of the houses on these streets. The 2200 block has even more heritage-listed homes, then there are a few more on 2300 and the 2400 blocks. I find these heritage homes offer not only character, but an anchor to the area that keeps it in touch with the past. The heritage designation means that these homes are less likely to be significantly changed without preservation of their original intention.
But heritage does not mean that a building cannot be revitalized, and you can see a great example of this at 2990 West 5th Avenue. An existing house, built in the 1920's, is listed in the Vancouver Heritage Register, and is also part of a significant streetscape of similar Craftsman or "California" Bungalow style architecture. It has been renovated and remodeled in a method of conservation called "adaptive re-use". The single-family house was converted into a back-to-back duplex through a 12 foot addition to the back of the house, and two bays extending out on either side. This adaptation respects the historic fabric of the existing building, and retains the character of the area.
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