Description du lieu patrimonial

The Mount Crown Block is a three-storey plus basement Edwardian era brick clad commercial and residential building, located near the waterfront in Lower Lonsdale in the City of North Vancouver.

Valeur patrimoniale

The heritage value of the Mount Crown Block is associated with its location in Lower Lonsdale, the commercial core of North Vancouver, and the earliest, most historic area of commercial buildings on the North Shore of Burrard Inlet. Lower Lonsdale grew explosively from the turn of the twentieth century until the general financial depression in 1913 halted the ambitious construction of the previous years. The streetcar, ferry to Vancouver and the Pacific Great Eastern railway converged at the south foot of Lonsdale Avenue, the major transportation hub on the North Shore. The area represents a formative period in B.C.'s economy, driven at the time by major industries including logging and shipbuilding.

Built in 1911, the Mount Crown Block is valued as one of the prominent buildings from the boom era in the City of North Vancouver. Built for C.A. Lett and Son, at the time of its construction the Mount Crown Block was one of the largest apartment buildings in the city. The first floor of the brick and pressed metal clad building housed two retail shops, to provide commercial space for businesses seeking to locate in the active Lower Lonsdale area. Eighteen apartments on the two upper floors provided housing for the large number of workers needed to support burgeoning commercial trade and the shipbuilding industry.

The Mount Crown Block is valuable for its association with its architects Dalton and Eveleigh, one of Vancouver's pre-eminent firms known for their high quality commercial, institutional and residential buildings, including many apartment buildings and hotels. There is also value in its association with contractors Baynes and Horie, well-known builders who prospered as the Lower Mainland developed in the boom years prior to the First World War.

Source: Heritage Planning Files, City of North Vancouver

Éléments caractéristiques

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Mount Crown Block include its:
- relationship to other commercial buildings in Lower Lonsdale
- location at the streetline, with no setback
- boxy form and symmetrical massing, with a central entry to the upper floors
- flat roof with raised parapets
- brick cladding, detailed with decorative inset brick panels on the third storey of the front facade
- projecting two-storey bays at front marking the residential floors
- multi-paned, double-hung 8-over-1 wooden-sash windows