High on the Hill

The first house I am looking at today is at 1556 Grant Street. It is a Colonial Revival-style house with a hipped roof and a hipped domer. It was built by James Edward Guinet as his own house although the Grandview Heritage Group has not found a building permit as of yet. 

This home was built in 1908/09. The water permit is dated July of 1908.

The Guinet family lived here until 1912. 

Original photos show the house at a lower elevation. This is due to the fact that the current street grade is lower, the house has not been raised.

This home is a more modest version of its neighbours and I am going to show you one of those homes now.

If you can see through the trees and shrubbery, this house is located at 1544 Grant Street. As with 1556, it is a Colonial Revival style home. It is assumed that James Guinet built this house, which is listed as new and vacant in 1909. William H. Hibbert occupied the residence from 1910 to 1912.

Sorry I was unable to get clearer photos. That's the way it goes sometimes!

That brings up to 1530 Grant Street. Another building best described as Colonial Revival. However, the sheltering hipped roof, exposed rafter rails and open soffits give it the look of the emerging Prairie Style houses from that period in Chicago. This is another home where the building permit seems to be lost. 

The official date of this home is 1912 although directories suggest it may have been around earlier. In 1909, a miner by the name of William W. Irwin lived at 1530. In 1910 and 1911, it was a lumberman named Walter M. Marriot and in 1912, Edmund Evans, a piano teacher. This looks like another home built by Guinet. 

I want to thank the Grandview Heritage Group for the information on the homes.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Bakeries and Stories

This building at the corner of Victoria Drive and William Street doesn't look like a lot and believe me it looked worse before the renovations started.

When the workers removed the stucco from the side of the building there was a unique addition found.

This sign dates back to the 1920s. Shelly's 4X Bakery Products was a Vancouver business that is now history.

William Curtis Shelly was born in Ontario in 1878 and moved to Vancouver in 1910 in order to expand his bakery business. The name apparently comes from the fact that Shelly started his business with a little more than forty dollars to his name.

Shelly's was around along. By 1929 records show that the bakery was part of Canadian Bakeries and had various locations around the city. A 1940 directory shows that a Shelly, Wm C. resided at 1563 Williams Street. Shelly died in 1951.

This is Washington Court at 998 Thurlow Street. It was built in 1910.

In 1895 Burnaby had to hire some police.. They needed someone to control the rowdies, let owners know that swine was running loose and enforce the wide tire bylaw for wagons. The salary was $2 a day and he was dismissed due to lack of funds two years later.

Our city's first CPR building was a tiny structure. It was moved from the north end of Howe Street to 10 Heatley Street in 1899. A CPR worker by the name of William Alberts had been injured on the job and he was allowed to move in and live rent free for the rest of his life. He resided there for fifty years.

It snowed in South Vancouver. On June 23, 1901.

In 1903 W.S. Holland shot and killed a timber wolf. It was at the corner of Burnaby and Cardero Streets.

The first auto club race around Stanley Park was held in 1905. There were eleven cars that started this race and only five completed it. All five vehicles were made by Oldsmobile.

Jeff  'the Boxing Kangaroo' delighted audiences at the Pantages Theatre in 1908. This is a bittersweet note because the last time I was in that area I noticed that the theatre has now been torn down. There went the last vaudeville house in Canada.

Victor McLaglen was an Oscar winning movie actor. But in 1909 McLaglen fought an exhibition fight in Vancouver with world heavyweight champion Jack Johnson.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, Vancouver, Shelly's 4X Bakery Products, Victor McLaglen, Jeff the Boxing Kangaroo, Pantages Theatre, British Columbia