I’m a huge fan of West Coast Modern architecture, which developed here in the 1940s at a time when it was thought to be more important to blend a house into its surroundings than impose it upon them.
People are often surprised to learn that our stock of rapidly disappearing mid-century modern houses designed by architects such as Arthur Erickson, Barry Downs and Ron Thom are considered heritage, and belong on the North Shore heritage registers.
The heritage buildings in the Shalal Gardens complex on Edgemont Boulevard are listed on the register. And while the original intent was to conserve them, and as time went by to reconstruct them, years of dithering by the District of North Vancouver means they are now slated for demolition. Ironically, the houses were built for moderate-income families, but instead of being replaced with affordable housing, the new development will be marketed as luxury townhomes.
The story of the Shalal Gardens redevelopment and the announcement of the Hudson’s Bay Company closure last week made me think of Fred Thornton Hollingsworth.
Hollingsworth was a North Vancouver architect who designed the Shalal Garden buildings in 1950 for Eric Allen, a developer and the president of Capilano Highlands. Hollingsworth was a rock star when it came to designing houses from post-and-beam construction, often with a small footprint and open plan that used glass and western red cedar to bring natural light and views of nature into the house. His houses are part art and part architecture.
“Boxes are a symbol of containment,” he told a Vancouver Sun reporter in 1998. “They aren’t suitable for human occupation. You’re boxed in. We tried to open the buildings up to the landscape while providing privacy.”
While Erickson and others imprinted their West Coast style of architecture all over Metro Vancouver, Hollingsworth is the architect most responsible for the look of post-war North Vancouver. Inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, Hollingsworth met the legend in 1951 and turned down a job offer to work with him, opting instead to develop his own style.
In 1966, he told Canadian Architect magazine why he wanted to stay in a small practice: “Because we’re romantics and it is to me exciting to see a family raised in a fine building they have lived in since the day they were born.”
While his name stands for West Coast Modernism and affordable homes, Hollingsworth’s architectural range is astounding. He designed the building that houses UBC’s Faculty of Law in 1971, and in 1993, he designed Nat Bosa’s West Vancouver waterfront mansion (ranked by Vancouver Magazine as the second most expensive property in B.C. in 2005). Hollingsworth though chose to spend more than half a century in the Ridgewood Drive house that he designed for his family in 1946. Hollingsworth died 10 years ago this month, outliving many of his West Coast Modern designs. His house sold in 2018 and still stands, for now.
Hollingsworth’s own home and the Shalal Gardens development are just blocks from another of his designs on Aintree Drive called the Sky Bungalow.
The amazing thing about the Sky Bungalow – apart from the fact that it exists at all – is that it started life in a downtown Vancouver parking lot.
In 1949, Allan and Hollingsworth came up with the idea of building a house in the Hudson’s Bay store parking lot to promote Allan’s Capilano Highlands subdivision. The Bay agreed – but only if the house took up no more than six parking spots. No problem, said Hollingsworth. He perched the wooden house on brick columns and floated it over the cars.
The Sky Bungalow was a huge hit. Thousands of people paid 10 cents to tour the house, with money raised donated to the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.
The house sold and was moved to its current North Vancouver address where it is surrounded by contemporary bungalows that have so far stayed with the scale and the feel of the neighbourhood.
“Think of a home in terms of a tree,” he told a Province reporter in 1949. “It should be built of natural materials, live close to the earth and provide shelter.”
Eve Lazarus is a North Vancouver resident and author. Her latest book is Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck. [email protected]
