For close to 30 years, Vancouver photographer James Loewen has been living it up in an old converted ballroom in the West End. He's just winding down his long-term stint at the Queen Charlotte building on Nicola Street, having put the 1,086-square-foot spot on the market this week for $1.29 million, but the whirlwind of guests that have come into his opulent pad for portrait sessions have included jazz singers Sibel Thrasher and the late Lovie Eli, actor Tom Pickett, burlesque comedian Big Fannie Annie and exotic dancer Richard Richards. One time, he invited the Vancouver Men's Chorus over, but even the proportions of the nearly 24x18-foot, high-ceilinged living room couldn't fit everyone into one picture.
If there's a reason Loewen's space at 1101 Nicola sounds so inviting, it's because a rotating cast of Vancouverites poured through here well before he moved into the building in 1989. Loewen explains: "This was originally an apartment hotel and it rented by the day, week or month. It used to have a very grand entranceway and parlour back in the ’20s when it was built, but in the ’30s they sectioned that off, so that huge room became my living room."
While Loewen's living room within the 1928 art deco low-rise had been nicknamed "the ballroom" from before the remodel, there's some debate over how roaring things actually got back during the Depression. "It was the kind of genteel, welcoming room you would have had in a 1920s hotel where there was furniture around the perimeter – people reading the newspaper, people having tea in the afternoon. I don't think it was a party room, particularly."
Though he's leaving his premium-sized one-bedroom apartment as part of a post-retirement down-sizing, Loewen celebrates all of the Queen Charlotte's old-time charm, punctuated by a recessed portico entrance, well maintained period carpets, and its brass-gated bird cage elevator – the last of its kind in the city.
Around the turn of the millennium, the photographer undertook his own restoration project by salvaging the building's original chandelier that had once hung high in the ballroom. The elegant, metallic piece had been buried deep in the Queen Charlotte’s basement, but Loewen pushed through an initiative to revive it with a fresh coat of paint. A friend whom Loewen hadn't realized collected antiques offered to rewire the chandelier before it was re-hung from the 10-and-a-half-foot ceiling of the ballroom. "It just seems that everything falls into place around here," the apartment owner notes.
Turns out the Queen Charlotte has come into plenty of luck over the years. Back in the early '80s, word came that developers wanted to knock down the building, but the tenants at the time rallied together, stratifying in 1984 to stop the wrecking ball. It was designated as a heritage building by the late '90s.
"I'm really glad that it didn't get wrecked," Loewen notes, adding, "around me are many buildings that were built during the '80s, and they had to be rain-screened. People lost their life savings trying to maintain their apartments. And this building is rock solid. It was built in the '20s out of reinforced concrete."
While Loewen has enjoyed his time at the Queen Charlotte, calling the experience "an oasis of calm," he's ready to uproot and let someone else have a ball.
"The building has a real character, so I really hope the new people here are going to feel that and thrive with whatever they choose to do with it."
