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Old Posted Oct 11, 2008, 5:22 PM
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Victorian relic re-emerges at Carrall and Hastings

Thought this was an interesting article about the Pennsylvania Hotel:

Quote:
Victorian relic re-emerges at Carrall and Hastings
Turret restored to give building historically accurate look


John Mackie, Vancouver Sun
Published: Saturday, October 11, 2008

Turrets used to be all the rage on Vancouver buildings -- around 1900. But in the last century or so, they've almost all disappeared.

This week, though, some scaffolding came down at the southeast corner of Carrall and Hastings to reveal a 13-foot-tall turret, with a nine-foot finial, on top of the Pennsylvania Hotel.

Clad in steel shingles, the turret is one of the focal points of a $12-million restoration of the Pennsylvania, an elegant five-storey building in the heart of Vancouver's troubled Downtown Eastside.

When it opened in 1906, the hotel was known as the Woods, and was billed as "one of the newest, most modern and strictly first class hotels on the Pacific Coast." One of the big selling points was that each of the 90 rooms had "private telephone service," and visitors were zipped up and down in a state-of-the-art metal cage elevator.

But the neighbourhood went into a long decline, and the Woods declined along with it. The first-class hotel became a single room occupancy (SRO) hotel for the down and out, with a seedy bar on the main floor in place of the original restaurant.

The hotel went through several names, including the Pennsylvania, the Rainbow and the Portland. In 2001, the non-profit Portland Hotel Society purchased it for $2,178,000, with the goal of restoring it and turning it into stable social housing.

It took several years to get the financing together. The Portland's Tom Laviolette said all three levels of government kicked in funding, and the Portland got $3.6 million selling off density rights to Concord-Pacific under Vancouver's heritage density transfer program.

The building received a full seismic (earthquake) upgrade, and the 70 SRO units have been converted into 44 studio apartments. The metal cage elevator is no longer operating, but is still in the basement, where it will be an architectural feature for a restaurant in the former bar.

The building is at a prominent corner at the intersection of Gastown and Chinatown, and the city wanted the Portland to go all out in the restoration, hence the turret was brought back.

"It was a fairly unusual detail for a commercial building," says Don Luxton, who was the heritage consultant on the project.

"In a way, the residential nature of the building is expressed in its turret. It was considered a very important part of the project to put it back. It's an expensive little item for a social housing project, but I think it's very important to see the building in the way it was intended."

Luxton says the hotel was done in a San Francisco style, with lots of bay windows. Many buildings of the time had water towers on the roof, but he says the turret was strictly ornamental.

"This would have given it some added prominence and height," says Luxton.
"Especially at the time, when things were lower. So it was important from an advertising point of view."

The turret is made of wood, while the metal shingles were made by the WF Norman company of Nevada, Missouri, which has been in business since 1898.

"It's a very high level of restoration to the exterior," says Luxton.
"The sheet metal on the bays is being restored, the windows [are being restored], and there's a stone arch at the entry that was completely covered over that we're putting back."

Laviolette says a replica of the Pennsylvania Hotel neon sign will be going up on the exterior in November, along with some restored balconies and a new awning over the front.

"There's still a few heritage elements that need to be put on, then it will really look good," he says.

The Pennsylvania is one of two high-profile heritage restorations on the notorious Hastings strip (the other one was a $20-million restoration of the 1898 Flack Block at Cambie and Hastings). But Luxton isn't sure if there will be any other big restoration projects in the neighbourhood in the near future.

"A lot of this was done under the city's transfer of density program, and unfortunately that's on hold now," Luxton said.

"We don't know what that's going to mean long term, but certainly at this point in time, there aren't going to be any large-scale projects like this go ahead."

jmackie@vancouversun.com


© The Vancouver Sun 2008
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/n...7c179c3853&p=1
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  #2  
Old Posted Oct 11, 2008, 5:26 PM
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Sweet. I'll have to walk over and take a look.
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Old Posted Oct 12, 2008, 2:50 AM
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I absolutely love that they are redoing historic buildings.

Here is a photo of the turret.
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Old Posted Oct 12, 2008, 10:19 PM
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I will see if i can find some rendering of the sign to post up

Last edited by muzhav84; Oct 12, 2008 at 10:20 PM. Reason: info
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Old Posted Oct 12, 2008, 10:20 PM
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i will see if i can find any rendering of what the huge new sign looks like!
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Old Posted Oct 12, 2008, 10:38 PM
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I walked by earlier today. It looks good, almost modern except for the turret.
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Old Posted Oct 13, 2008, 3:06 AM
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Nice. Keep up the good work
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Old Posted Oct 18, 2008, 7:34 AM
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Quote:
This week, though, some scaffolding came down at the southeast corner of Carrall and Hastings to reveal a 13-foot-tall turret, with a nine-foot finial, on top of the Pennsylvania Hotel.
It's nice to see this kind of restoration in Vancouver, although from the picture above it's not exactly as shown in this older picture (see link below), where the finial was actually much taller.

http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/010726/peA2-2.gif

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Old Posted Oct 18, 2008, 7:14 PM
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The building looks pretty sharp now! It would be nice if this was done with more buildings, especially the ones that have had their cornices lopped off.
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Old Posted Nov 8, 2008, 2:50 AM
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heres some pics where you can see it a little bit anyway - taken by me last sunday



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