(a) Imperial Street and Royal Oak Avenue
(b) MacPherson Avenue between Kingsway and Rumble Street
(c) Imperial Street from Royal Oak Avenue to Kingsway
(a) Lane West of Royal Oak Avenue between Sprott Street and Woodsworth Street
(b) Sprott Street between Royal Oak Avenue and the said Lane
(Forest Lawn Cemetery Company)
Lanes Between:
(a) Victory Street and Sidley Street from Royal Oak Avenue to Nelson Avenue
(b) Sidley Street and Watling Street from Royal Oak Avenue to Nelson Avenue
This Baptist congregation originally held services in a tent at the corner of McGregor Avenue and Portland but they soon were able to build a small church. A membership drive by Pastor Arthur James Bowbrick (1875-1961) was so successful that the congregation was able build this fine structure, prominently located at the corner of Victory Street. Although it has been altered with later additions and stucco over the original siding, the original windows and the rooftop belfry remain.
Forest Lawn Memorial Park was founded and designed by Albert F. Arnold, who wanted to design a memorial park “which would be a place of perpetual beauty and which would banish the ‘graveyard’ taint from such places forever.” The 145 acres of Forest Lawn were designed as a garden, which overlooks Vancouver and has a magnificent view of the mountains. Called “God’s Acres,” with white-shelled walks and piped sacred music, the design allowed a natural setting to offer solace to grieve. Bronze memorial plaques were used rather than headstones, which would have marred the garden effect. Arnold acted as a consultant to memorial parks all over Canada and the United States and many of his innovations have become standard practice in North American cemeteries. Equipped with its own greenhouses, the park has more than a million plants of all types. The chapel, which sits on the lower southern slopes, is a sophisticated modernist structure that was designed by renowned local architects McCarter & Nairne.
During the Edwardian era, the western provinces were experiencing unprecedented population growth, and in response, in 1904 the Vancouver-based B.C. Mills, Timber and Trading Company patented a modular prefabricated building system that could be adapted to provide everything from modest one-room cottages to churches, schools and banks. Wall panels were assembled from the short mill ends of lumber and siding, until then just waste material that piled up in the millyard. These panels were bolted together on site, with the joints between the panels covered by distinctive vertical battens. Wall panels were assembled at the mill, pre-painted, and packaged with the other components and the instructions necessary to assemble the building. The disassembled building was then shipped to the waiting customer. As western settlements became established, labour and materials were more freely available and local construction companies could be more competitive in their costs. By 1910, this prefabricated system was rendered obsolete. The Smith Residence is a beautifully-preserved example of a B.C. Mills house, and is one of the models that featured a gambrel roof and a full open front verandah. This house was built by local contractor Mr. MacLean for James Smith, a ship’s engineer on the Empress of Japan, and his wife, Agnes. Agnes Smith continued to live here after her husband’s death and sold the house and property in the late 1920s with two of the acres being purchased by her daughter, Grace and husband Henry Pletcher to build a neighbouring house.