Food and Pender

I happened to be walking along West Pender Street last week and looked up at this building, Roberts Block.

Circa 1906. I took a few close up pictures to put in a file until I learned more. That didn`t take long. I was researching something on HistoricPlaces.ca and there was the Roberts Block.

According to HistoricPlaces this was built in 1908. This Edwardian era structure is valued because it is representative of many small scale buildings of the time. It was designed to be a mixed use building - residential and commercial. I've seen alot of this in the older buildings around town. And the new ones as well! This is a practical way to design a building and it livens the neighbourhood.

Roberts Block is notable due to its practical design without the bold, stylistic, pretentious decorative touches seen on a lot of buildings. But that is typical of the Edwardian era construction. It was not as ornate as the previous Victorian buildings. This building has modest, symmetrical decorative features such as  continuous sills, lintels, and sheet metal stringcourses and cornices.

Roberts Block is also valuable because of it's original owner, Thomas Joseph Roberts. Roberts, an early Vancouver pioneer, was a real estate developer and hotelier. He was widely known as the owner and manager of the Grand Hotel in Gastown.

This former home is one of the few single family residential homes in the area. Located at 869 Hamilton Street this two storey, wood frame building has been converted into the Villa del Lupo Restaurant. (It seems as if the establishment is known simply as LUPO Restaurant now.)

Built in 1900 this is an Edwardian Carpenter style building as is shown by the covered porch, hipped roof and horizontal wood siding.

Back to West Pender. At 319 there is the Riggs-Selman Building.

In 1908 Samuel Spenser Selman and Dr. Herbert Wilkinson Riggs had this structure built in Victory Square. During the early twentieth century this was an important hub of commercial, corporate and retail activity and this building was located in the center of numerous bank headquarters and corporate offices.

As you can tell by the year of construction, the Riggs-Selman Building is part of the Edwardian era of architecture and its large, regularly-disposed upper storey windows are characteristic of that period. But this building differs slightly from most Edwardian era buildings in its articulation of the facade which is more elaborate than most of this era.

The central portion of the facade consists of a plain, unadorned wall treatment of smooth stone veneer. This use of stone as primary cladding material serves to denote the Riggs-Selman Building as one of quality since most of the structures in the area used less expensive brick.

A note. I have been having a lot of computer problems lately and the PC is going to have to go back to the depot for fixing. It will take 7-10 days before I get it back. I do have an older computer that I can use but I can't guarantee about this blog. I will do my best to keep it going on a regular basis. Thanks for your patience.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

TAGS:Vancouver, Karen Magill, Gastown, Grand Hotel,LUPO Restaurant,Roberts Block,History,Thomas Joseph Roberts,Riggs-Selman Building