Description of Historic Place

The Bodega Hotel is a three storey, turn-of-the-nineteenth century commercial masonry building, located on the west side of Carrall Street 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. The Bodega Hotel is valued as an early Gastown hotel, representative of the area's seasonal population in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, 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 Bodega Hotel is valued for its architecture as a fine example of the influence of the Romanesque Revival style from the turn-of-the-nineteenth century, illustrating how popular architectural styles were used by the hotel business to market a progressive image. It reflects a time of transition between the Late Victorian and Edwardian era, and conveys an image of strength and prosperity. It replaced an earlier wood-frame Bodega Hotel, built in 1886 on this site right after the Great Fire. The Bodega is also valued for its associations with its owner, pioneer Vancouver businessman John Badcock Lovell (1831-1915).

The Bodega Hotel is also significant as a surviving design by architect John Wesley Mallory, who practised briefly in Vancouver during the Klondike era. He was the son of Ontario architect William H. Mallory Sr., and trained under his father in Chatham, Ontario. In early 1898, J.W. Mallory opened an office in Vancouver, but left the city in 1901 when the economy failed to perform as anticipated during the Klondike boom.

Source: City of Vancouver, Heritage Planning Street Files

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the Bodega Hotel include:
- spatial relationship to other late Victorian and Edwardian era commercial buildings
- location adjacent to Maple Tree Square, in close proximity to the waterfront of Burrard Inlet and the Canadian Pacific Railway yard, with Trounce Alley to the north side
- siting on the property lines, with no front and side setbacks
- cubic form and symmetrical massing; three storey height with flat roof; four-bay front facade with central entry
- Romanesque Revival influence as exemplified by the front facade articulated with alternating pier and spandrel motif, masonry construction and bold detailing
- masonry construction: brick front facade (now parged); red brick side and rear walls; and monolithic granite storefront threshold sills and column bases
- fenestration, arranged in sets of three windows in each bay, with rectangular second floor windows and round-arched third floor windows with running dentil detailing above on front facade and returning onto the alley facade
- double-hung 1-over-1 wood-sash windows on upper floors
- round cast iron columns at ground level, with iron I-beam headers with rosettes, supporting large rectangular storefront openings
- wooden storefront elements and transom windows
- brick chimneys at the parapet level on the alley facade
- surviving interior features such as mosaic tile floor with 'Bodega Hotel' inset at original entry