Hotel Stanley

Gastown is the historic core of Vancouver, and is the city's earliest, most historic area of commercial buildings and warehouses. The Hotel Stanley is valued as an early Gastown hotel, representative of the area's seasonal population in the early twentieth century, as Vancouver emerged as western Canada's predominant commercial centre. It was built as part of the investment portfolio of Evans, Coleman and Evans, general merchants and shipping agents, considered at the time one of the leading commercial firms in the province. 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. Designed by architects Grant and Henderson in 1906, the Stanley was developed as two adjoining hotels run by separate proprietors. Additionally, it illustrates the rapid construction of a number of hotels along Cordova Street at this time, in response to a change in liquor licensing laws that abolished free-standing saloons on July 1, 1906.

The Hotel Stanley is valued for its architecture as an example of commercial design of the early twentieth century, illustrating how popular architectural styles were used by the hotel business to market a progressive image. It is also valued for its role in the revitalization of Gastown during the 1970s. The Stanley and the adjacent New Fountain Hotel were renovated in a project that combined commercial activity with the city's first privately developed rent-controlled housing.