Description of Historic Place

The Pender Hotel is a three-storey brick building comprised of a retail store at street level with accommodation above. It is located mid-block in the 100-block of West Pender, in the western portion of Vancouver’s historic Chinatown district.

Heritage Value

Built in 1913 for Storey and Campbell as a residential building originally called the Palmer Rooms, the Pender Hotel is significant for its architecture and for its history of ownership and use. The developers were Jonathan Storey and Roderick Campbell, Jr., the owners of the Storey and Campbell Co., whose large distribution warehouse was located just up the street and around the corner at 518 Beatty Street. The building’s primary use was as lodging rooms on the upper floor, with retail space at ground level.

The Pender Hotel has value for its architecture, and for having been designed by W.T. Whiteway, a talented architect best known for the nearby World Building and designer also of the Storey and Campbell Company’s warehouse. It was built by local contractors, Campbell & Wilkie. A shallow light well along either side enables natural light to enter the rooms. The structure combines steel columns with fire-resistant wood millwork floors. The quality may have reflected the intention of catering to a higher class of residents than other neighbourhood hotels and rooming houses; and/or it may indicate that this block of Pender Street had particular status; compared to the decoration of the nearby Arco Hotel (81 West Pender). Whoever may have been its market, the building is located in an area of downtown that was used for transient living accommodations, between the warehouse district and Chinatown, and within walking distance of the major transportation nodes.

The property remained in the Storey family until 1946, when Chinese-Canadian Lai Hing purchased it. Lai lived here and also operated the building when it was called the Wingate Hotel.

Source: City of Vancouver Heritage Conservation Program

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the Pender Hotel include:
- The full site coverage
- The formal architectural features, including stepped parapet; elaborate pressed-metal cornice with brackets, dentils, and rosettes; the segmental-arched windows of the third floor, with terra cotta lintels and keystones and with stone sills; the flat-headed windows of the second floor, with stone sills; the terra cotta frieze between the second and third storeys; the ornamented terra cotta frieze between the first and second storeys, with a wreath motif; and the terra cotta pilasters at the sides of the ground floor
- The recessed entry doors on the street elevation
- The hard, high-quality brick used on the street elevation
- The use of face brick for stretchers in the bonding courses along the side and rear elevations; the remainder of the brick on these elevations is common brick
- The recessed light wells along the side elevations (only the west one can be seen)
- The original wood sash windows on the west and north (rear) elevations
- The segmental window heads on the north elevation
- The continuing residential use on the upper floors