SYLVIA HOTEL

ADDRESS: 1154 Gilford St, Vancouver BC

NEIGHBOURHOOD: West End

TYPE: Commercial

PROTECTION & RECOGNITION: M: Municipal Protection

SIGNIFICANCE: A: Primary Significance

The Sylvia was designed as an apartment building by Mr. W.P. White, a Seattle architect. It was built in 1912 by Booker, Campbell and Whipple Construction Company for Mr. Goldstein, and named after Mr. Goldstein’s daughter, Sylvia. In 1932, the Dine in the Sky Restaurant opened at the Sylvia, and it hosted many of Vancouver’s elites prior to 1962. During the Depression the Sylvia Court Apartments fell on hard times, and in 1936 the building was converted into an apartment hotel. With the advent of World War II, many of the suites were converted to rooms, in order to provide accommodation for the merchant-marine crews. After the war the number of permanent residents in the hotel gradually decreased, until by the sixties the Sylvia had become a completely transient full-service hotel.

In 1954 it opened the first cocktail bar in Vancouver, called the Tilting Room. Until 1958 the Sylvia Hotel was the tallest building in the West End. Designated a heritage building in 1975, the Sylvia Hotel is registered in the ‘A’ category on the Vancouver Heritage Register.

A well-known landmark, its brick and terra-cotta extension is softened by the Virginia creeper that now completely covers the Gilford Street side of the hotel.

The Sylvia Hotel was a stop on Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s 2018 West End Heritage Tour.

SOURCE

Sylvia Hotel website, VHF West End Heritage Tour Information, VHF Files

MORE INFORMATION

https://www.sylviahotel.com/history/