Friday, December 10, 2010
Swedish Canadian Rest Home
The original building at 1690 Main Street in North Vancouver District was a Public Building/Dance Hall built for $1500 by the Swedish Community in 1928. In 1944 A. Gjerdaleau applied for a Building Permit to construct a $1,500 house on the property. In 1947 the Swedish Rest Home applied for Building Permit to build a second home there. This one was valued at $3,500. And in 1947 there was an application was for a Public Building/Rest Home worth $40,000.
"The three Highway District buildings (the later owners of the buildings-See Link.) were originally the Canadian Rest Home, located on the north side of Main St. on Cutter Island. Here the Seymour River divided into two branches which flowed around the island, came together again, and flowed into Burrard Inlet.
"Construction of the main rest home and the two small cottages was completed in 1948. In the late 1950's the land and the buildings were expropriated to make way for the new Second Narrows Bridge. The west channel of the river was filled in in 1956. From the early 1960'a until the summer of 2000 the buildings served as offices for the provincial highways department." (See Reference.)
Over the years the B. C. Government Department of Highways offices at 1690 Main Street included numerous departments:Regional Office, Highway Patrol, Regional Bridge Maintenance, Bridge Patrol, Public Works, Regional Surfacing, Regional Soils, Regional Right-Of-Way, Regional Maintenance, and Regional Paving.
The three buildings were a distinctive part of the North Vancouver landscape in that they sat in the center of the Exit 23A cloverleaf on the turn off to Main Street in North Vancouver. Since their demolition only the occasional deer or seasonal randomly decorated Christmas tree is seen there.
Reference: NV Archives photo description Key # 21667.
Demolition: Of all three buildings in 2001.
Photos: Black and White from Roll #9, 2001 Demolition and Construction Project by SW and available at the North Vancouver Archives. Colored photo from slide #15465 at the North Vancouver Archives.
