400 block Richards Street – east side

 

https://changingvancouver.wordpress.com/2016/09/22/400-block-richards-street-east-side/

These two images, although thirty five years apart, appear almost identical. On the corner is a building on a site acquired by one of Chinatown’s merchants, the Sam Kee Company, run by Chang Toy. Sam Kee acquired two 25 foot lots at the corner of Pender and Richards in 1904, and the Empress Rooms were completed in 1906. In 1905 it was put up for sale for $20,000 and acquired by William Walsh, a lawyer who owned quite a bit of property in this part of the city. He spent $25,000 to build the Grant and Henderson designed building, and apparently cashed in nicely in 1909 selling for $200,000 to an Oakland investor. These days it’s the home of MacLeods Books. In 1981 the second store in the building, down the hill, was the All Nations Stamp and Coin Co; today it’s an Antiques and Collectables store, with

The other half of the block is Century House, built in 1911 for the Canada Permanent Mortgage Corporation. The building was designed by J S D Taylor, an architect trained in Scotland. Canada Permanent operated at Century House until 1951. Since then, it has been home to an insurance company, a trade school, an antique store, a book store and a restaurant. Today it appears on the internet as a recording studio. The exterior is made of cut granite stone, except for two beavers and a lighthouse cast in concrete, which crown the buildings. It’s the emblem of the building’s developer.