http://www.historicplaces.ca/
Description of
Historic Place
The
Hotel Winters is a massive four storey Edwardian era masonry
hotel, located on the southwest corner of Water and Abbott Streets
in the historic district of Gastown.
Heritage Value
Gastown
is the historic core of Vancouver, and is the city's earliest,
most historic area of commercial buildings and warehouses. Built
for Mrs. A.M. Winters in 1907, the Hotel Winters is valued as
an early Gastown hotel, representative of the area's seasonal
population in the early twentieth century, as Vancouver emerged
as western Canada's predominant commercial centre. Hotels such
as this provided both short and long-term lodging, serving primarily
those who worked in the seasonal resource trades such as fishing
and logging. Many of these hotels had combined functions of
commercial services on the ground floor and lodging rooms on
the upper floors, which contributed to the lively street life
in Gastown. The massive size of this structure illustrates the
city's rapid population growth at the time, and the increased
pressure to accommodate seasonal workers at a time when the
economy was booming.
The Hotel Winters is valued as an excellent example of commercial
design from the Edwardian era, demonstrating the local influence
of the Chicago School. This is evident in the tripartite facade
articulation, and illustrates how popular architectural styles
were used by the hotel business to market a progressive image.
At the time of its construction, the Hotel Winters was considered
one of the better hotels in the city, and was furnished with
every modern and up-to-date convenience, including telephones
and hot running water. It was designed by one of the city's
leading architects, William Tuff Whiteway (1856-1940), who also
designed the Woodward's Department Store at Hastings and Abbott
Streets (1903) and the World (Sun) Tower at Beatty and Pender
Streets, once the tallest commercial building in the British
Empire (1912).
Character-Defining
Elements
The
character-defining elements of the Hotel Winters include:
- prominent corner location, in close proximity to the waterfront
of Burrard Inlet and the Canadian Pacific Railway yard
- siting on the property lines, with no setbacks
- spatial relationship to other late Victorian and Edwardian
era commercial buildings
- massive scale and cubic massing as expressed in its monolithic
four-storey height, flat roof and rectangular plan
- masonry construction: pressed red brick cladding on the front
and east facades; common red brick cladding on the rear and
west facades; rough-dressed sandstone lintels and sills; and
massive granite threshold at entry
- rectangular storefront openings with prefabricated cast iron
ground floor columns, inscribed with maker's mark 'SMW NW BC'
- original chamfered corner entry, with original wooden door
surround, transoms and dentils
- central entry on Abbott Street to the upper floors with brick
columns and intricately carved sandstone capitals, original
wooden door surround, transom and dentils
- double-hung 1-over-1 wood-sash windows on upper floors
- sheet metal cornice above storefronts
- surviving original interior features such as mosaic tile floor
at entry, stair balusters, wall paneling and other woodwork