I’m dimly aware of living among rich neighbours, but the property on sale only a left-fielder’s toss from my plain board house has a one-eyebrow-raising asking price of $15 million.
I must casually mention this to impress my friends, if any.
It’s hidden before a distracting curve on the south side of Marine Drive (No. 5324), a couple of minutes past Lighthouse Park, and it has history.
Known as Kew House, it was built in 1937 by A.J.T. Taylor, whose name lives on in Taylor Way. He was prime mover and president of the Guinness family’s British Pacific Properties development and Lions Gate Bridge.
I long mused: Funny that Taylor didn’t build his own home in the properties. Which also puzzled Lillian D’Acres and archivist Donald Luxton. In their excellent book Lions Gate (Talon Books, Burnaby, 1999), they say Taylor wanted to, “but the company inexplicably refused to approve it.”
To add to the mystery, when Lions Gate Bridge was officially opened in May 1939 by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (mother of the present queen) Taylor wasn’t among the dignitaries but just a man in the crowd. He’d resigned from the bridge company only three days earlier.
Victoria-born Taylor was summoned to serve in the British ministry of aircraft production in the Second World War, then moved to Washington as a dollar-a-year man. He died in New York in July 1945, weeks before the war ended.
By then Kay (Norgan) Meek, great and never to be forgotten benefactor of West Van theatre, had bought the property. It became the venue of Vancouver Symphony Orchestra teas, some for famous conductors, and beach parties: “Some good friends sailed from Hawaii every year bringing loads of flower leis for the guests,” Meek wrote in a memoir, The History of Kew House. Grand days. The property was also owned for a while by Garfield Weston, popularly known as “the biscuit man.”
The 5,000-square-foot house on 1.66 acres, a fraction of the original property, is offered by Engel & Volkers, citing “world-class water views that will truly impress.” Thanks to West Van archivist Reto Tschan for help with this item.
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In the question period after Mayor Michael Smith’s recent speech to the West Vancouver Chamber of Commerce, Coun. Bill Soprovich – mischievously, surely – asked twice-acclaimed Smith if he planned to run in October’s elections.
Smith drily cited Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s famous, at least in Canada, “walk in the snow” on Feb. 28, 1984 while he pondered running again in the next election. (He didn’t.) Smith’s analogy was that he’d take a “walk in the sand” – in Hawaii at his oft-visited holiday home. He repaired to it soon after his speech, which drew a thunderous standing ovation.
Agent 6kY3m, quite familiar with town hall politics, hasn’t a grain of sand’s doubt about Smith’s to-run-or-not-to-run decision: Like Trudeau, he won’t.
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Afterthought: Smith certainly wouldn’t be influenced by the killer letter to the editor by Susan Thomas, North Vancouver, March 14 in this paper. Heading: Dark Days in West Van, a District That Lost its Soul.
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Ace columnist Malcolm Parry reports that West Vancouver will be visited at an undisclosed date by the Aga Khan. Yes, the great and good friend and holiday host of Justin Trudeau, and spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims, prominent locally among them the Lalji family, owners of Park Royal Shopping Centre.
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The gods – being ancient Greeks, they have a well-honed sense of humour about bumbling mankind – are laughing hysterically.
The two possibly psychopathic wielders of mass annihilation, who have been arguing over who has the biggest, er, weapon, have agreed out of the bluest blue to meet and sort of talk it over. Meanwhile the leaders of two abutting Canadian provinces, their peoples entirely cordial, won’t get together and settle a quarrel over oil, wine and water.
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Speaking of Alberta: Determined to reject all new charitable appeals, I weakly was beguiled by a slick pitch from the Alberta Cancer Foundation that not only was addressed to me by name but in the text assured me that “people from West Vancouver can benefit” from its work. So I wrote a little cheque.
Aha – then I read the small print. Under the Alberta Charitable Fund-Raising Act, these disclosures are obligatory: Projected fundraising costs, excluding lottery expenses, 31.7 per cent of projected budget; administrative costs, 12.3 per cent of gross charitable revenue. Total, 44 per cent.
I tore up the cheque. John Horgan, steal this legislation from Alberta.
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I asked a West Vancouverite with thorough professional knowledge of the Soviet Union: What’s your take on Vladimir Putin? Briefly: Was a KGB man. Remains a KGB man.
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Noting the deaths of prominent West Vancouver residents is always a (space) problem, but here’s a salute to Keith Pople, who did much to enhance his community.
And also Barrie Clark, talk show host and a 1960s Liberal MLA for North Vancouver-Seymour and council member for North Vancouver District – he had a failed shot at West Van council too – who died last Friday.
