1916 – Hotel Vancouver, Vancouver, Canada

The second of three hotels to bear the name Vancouver was a 15 storey Italian Renaissance style hotel built by the Canadian Pacific Railway. The hotel closed in 1939, when an arrangement was made with rival Canadian National Railway (CNR) to jointly operate CNR’s new hotel, located two blocks away. That hotel took over the name Hotel Vancouver and is still operating today. The 1916 CPR building survived until 1949 when it was demolished by the Eaton’s department store chain.

“PIERCING the skyline as its sixteen stories soar upwards from the crest of the Granville street incline. the new Hotel Vancouver, the largest building in Canada, stands an architectural triumph of development on the Pacific Coast. The palatial building is an indication of what Vancouver has risen to be and what she is expected to be; proof conclusive, also, of the enterprise of the company operating the greatest transcontinental railroad on the American continent. The hotel is the central edifice dominating a fine group of lofty and substantial buildings — the Vancouver Block, the ornate Birks Building and the massive new store of the Hudson’s Bay Company. It stands preeminent among the city’s skyscrapers, now becoming quite numerous.”
Construction, April 1916

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