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Open House: Hastings-Sunrise

Property: L’Atelier building at 2556 East Hastings Street . The building looks unimpressive with its collection of shops with lit signs at ground level.

Property: L’Atelier building at 2556 East Hastings Street. The building looks unimpressive with its collection of shops with lit signs at ground level. But the interior of the 1940s building that was transformed into live/work lofts in 1995 by Merrick Architecture is a revelation. Diane King bought a second-floor loft in the building as an investment property in 2006.

“I'd heard about this building on East Hastings and like most Vancouverites — I was born and raised in Vancouver — it was like East Hastings, oh my gosh,” said the opera singer and head of the voice department at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra School of Music. “But when I actually saw the building, it was just so amazing,” she said. “The hallways are really, really wide and they have glass block floors and ceilings and so it’s like a solarium outside my door. I have hibiscus and bougainvillea and cacti and succulents. People are growing tomatoes and things in their hallways... plus there's a big rooftop deck.”

King has become a booster for the area with its Italian delis, an array of restaurants and Donald’s Market just steps from her door.

“It's really a spillover now from Commercial Drive in terms of attracting your hipster population and then lots of young families with kids,” King said. “It's just a really, really vibrant, wonderful neighbourhood, much more interesting than Kits, which is a terrible thing to say.”

She bought a third-floor loft in 2008 from a painter and a potter, and now she and her husband are selling it to buy a house. “The day of the hippie-artist-painter-potter is dying, unfortunately or fortunately,” she said. “That's life in Vancouver, isn’t it.”