Houzz Tours
Houzz Tour: Industrial Charm in Vancouver’s Gastown
Brick veneer, a towering mural and vintage plumbing pipes create old-school character in a historic building
The words “historic building” — in a neighborhood filled with vintage lampposts, cobblestones and streets with names like Blood Alley — immediately conjure images of rough-hewn beams, original brickwork and well-worn floors. But the space confronting designer Reisa Pollard in Vancouver’s historic Gastown neighborhood had none of the character and charm she expected. Brick and cedar beam construction characterized the original building, but when it was converted to residential units in 1992, builders had installed drywall and prefabricated floors. “It was really lackluster and took away all that uniqueness and character,” Pollard says. “The clients wanted me to bring that back.”
Pollard installed brick veneer over the drywall in the great room, then had a muralist come in and reproduce a historic advertisement that had graced the exterior of one of the buildings in the neighborhood. “We didn’t want to be so typical as to have a red brick loft,” she says.
Pollard originally didn’t like the wood-burning stove the clients had installed in the room, but she added cabinetry made from reclaimed wood and metals to “give it some grounding.”
Pollard originally didn’t like the wood-burning stove the clients had installed in the room, but she added cabinetry made from reclaimed wood and metals to “give it some grounding.”
The mural provides a stunning visual focal point when you walk from the low-ceilinged kitchen and dining areas into the great room, “like when you walk outside and look up at a really cool building,” Pollard says. Usually the designer would choose a neutral palette for a room with so much height, but she found that adding color made the space more interesting and cozy. She chose opposites — the orange couch and a teal blue pulled out of some of the clients’ artwork — “so it’s not all in the grays and concrete colors.”
Reclaimed silver cedar barn board on the walls adds texture and warmth to the TV area.
The kitchen previously had an L-shaped peninsula that blocked entry from the kitchen into the great room. Pollard reshaped the island and moved it out, toward the dining area, to make the kitchen “more accommodating for someone who cooks a lot,” as the client does. The countertops are soapstone (which is “unique to North America,” Pollard points out), and the island is reclaimed metal barn cladding. The original range had no ventilation, so Pollard added a downdraft fan with a charcoal filter. Press a button and the vent comes up from behind the range, avoiding the bulkiness of an overhead hood in a space with an already low ceiling.
Faucets and fixtures in brass add an old-world European feel, as do the kitchen cabinets, painted in a classic green lacquer characteristic of British race cars.
“Very 2000-ish engineered flooring” covered the condo floors, all of it glued down so completely that trying to remove it to get down to the building’s original concrete flooring proved an impossible task. Pollard found a company that did a concrete overlay on the floor that “went right over everything” on the entire main floor to give the effect of the original concrete. Pollard’s antique dealer made the dining room table from old reclaimed wood and an antique base, and recovered the vintage straight-back chairs.
A Canadian artist created the dining room light fixture from vintage plumbing pipes, a touch Pollard wanted to pay homage to her client, who works in construction.
The client does a lot of her own sewing and baking. Pollard found an antique sewing machine table and had it made into a bathroom vanity.
The clients wanted the master bedroom and bath on the second level to be separate so guests could use the master bathroom when visiting the rooftop deck. Pollard replaced a fairly high pony wall with a railing to provide more light and a view of the mural from both floors. Artisans created the master bed with wheels to “look like a big old cart of some sort you would use in a factory,” she says. An upholstered headboard and reclaimed wood walls add comfort and softness.
Custom-made barn doors of metal and glass bring natural light into the master bath. The stairs lead up to the rooftop deck.
Designing the master bathroom was “the most fun I’ve had in some time,” Pollard says. The mural is a mosaic of travertine stone tiles, created from a drawing by a local artist of a downtown alley in Vancouver. Pollard sent the drawing to a company in Israel that made it into a mosaic and sent the tiles back in numbered sheets.
Cabinetry was made by a millworker to provide a “natural old farmhouse table look.” Plumbing for the free-standing tub is in the ceiling; water drops from a ceiling faucet to fill the tub.
Cabinetry was made by a millworker to provide a “natural old farmhouse table look.” Plumbing for the free-standing tub is in the ceiling; water drops from a ceiling faucet to fill the tub.
Tile that looks like wood planks provides harmony between the shower and the bathroom cabinetry.
The rooftop deck offers a million-dollar view of the city skyline. The deck was largely done, but Pollard finished off the stairs and stairwell leading from the loft to the deck with extra millwork.
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Houzz at a Glance
Location: Historic Gastown neighborhood in Vancouver, British Columbia
Size: 1,651 square feet (153 square meters); two bedrooms, two bathrooms
Designer: Reisa Pollard of Beyond Beige Interior Design
Because the wife is an architect and the husband works in construction, Pollard wanted the space to be authentic and accurate. “The client said, ‘We don’t care about being trendy. We want something that feels right to us,’” Pollard says. “And once she said that, then I needed to know, ‘Who are you?’” The answer was European (husband and wife both hail from the United Kingdom), passionate about their dog, art lovers and strong personalities with a clear sense of their style.
The clients had admired another historic Vancouver loft Pollard had designed for Canadian actor and comedian Seth Rogen and wanted something with a similar feel. “The project I did for Seth had an underlying theme of Canadiana,” Pollard says. “For these clients, I decided to go with their European history,” adding classic touches such as an old English-style wallpaper with an oversize floral design in the powder room, or an English steamer trunk as a coffee table in the living space. The result is an eclectic combination of old-world Europe, gritty industrial late-19th-century Canada and a warmth and personality all the clients’ own.
“The space was incredibly challenging,” Pollard says. The great room, shown here, a narrow space with a double-height ceiling, “felt like a vacuum.” The first thing Pollard did was divide the space into two areas: a private area for watching TV and an inviting public area for entertaining. She chose swivel chairs for the TV area that spin around to combine the two spaces into one large area. A custom rug with an abstract pattern that mimics wood grain belonged to the clients before the remodel. Pollard had the lamp made from a statue of a miniature Shetland pony to “add some whimsy,” she says.