Windsor Hotel - 1899
738 Columbia Street, New Westminster, BC.
Description of Historic Place:
The Windsor Hotel is a three-story wood-frame hotel building, with chamfered corner entrances at the front and rear, located at the corner of Begbie, Front and Columbia Streets, on the main commercial street in New Westminster's historic downtown core.
Heritage Value:
The Windsor Hotel is significant for its contribution to the consistent and distinctive built form of Columbia and Front Streets, which dates from 1898 to 1913, when New Westminster was the major centre of commerce and industry for the booming Fraser Valley area. Rushed to completion in 1899 after the Great Fire, the Windsor Hotel was one of the few wood-clad structures to be built on Columbia Street, and remains the only one dating from the fire reconstruction to survive in the downtown. In 1905 the hotel was extended with a one-storey addition that faced Front Street, which two years later was expanded to three stories, resulting in the existing form of the hotel. The original facades were covered in the 1940s, when the Windsor was stuccoed in an attempt to reduce its vulnerability to fire and as a means of updating its Victorian appearance, but much of the original building has been preserved underneath.
The Windsor Hotel is a landmark building that was built to the designs of architects Emil Guenther (born 1855) and T. Van Aken, who were briefly in partnership at this time. Guenther had relocated from the United States to New Westminster just after the Great Fire, and with Van Aken participated in some of the reconstruction. Shortly afterwards, Guenther moved his office to Vancouver, where he specialized in the design of hotels, including the Dominion Hotel, 1900-1901, and the Terminus Hotel, 1901, both of which still stand on Water Street in Gastown.
Additional heritage value lies in the Windsor Hotel's landmark status as a meeting place, retail venue and community institution for over one hundred years. The hotel was built to accommodate a number of retail shops on the ground floor, and later it became a local bar. From 1944 to 1950, the Windsor Hotel was the well-known broadcasting centre for CKNW radio.
Source: Heritage Planning Files, City of New Westminster
Character-Defining Elements:
Key elements that define the heritage character of the Windsor Hotel include its:
- corner lot location on at a prominent corner at Columbia, Front and Begbie Streets, with facades facing three main streets, part of a grouping of late Victorian and Edwardian era commercial buildings in historic downtown New Westminster
- siting on the property lines, with no setbacks
- three-storey (with lower level) height, chamfered corners at the front and rear, flat roof and cubic massing
- intact elements of the original wooden siding obscured by later stucco, metal and tile cladding
- heavy timber-frame internal structure
- fenestration, including: a regular pattern of window openings on the second floor; intact third floor double-hung 1-over-1 wooden-sash windows under the later metal cladding
- interior features such as the original room configuration on the second and third floors, lath-and-plaster walls, wooden trim, and wood floors
- remaining elements of the CKNW radio studio
- surviving elements of the ground floor bar from the 1940s and 1950s, including separate mens' and ladies and escorts' entrances marked by backlit signs
Windsor Hotel - 1899
738 Columbia Street, New Westminster, BC.
Description of Historic Place:
The Windsor Hotel is a three-story wood-frame hotel building, with chamfered corner entrances at the front and rear, located at the corner of Begbie, Front and Columbia Streets, on the main commercial street in New Westminster's historic downtown core.
Heritage Value:
The Windsor Hotel is significant for its contribution to the consistent and distinctive built form of Columbia and Front Streets, which dates from 1898 to 1913, when New Westminster was the major centre of commerce and industry for the booming Fraser Valley area. Rushed to completion in 1899 after the Great Fire, the Windsor Hotel was one of the few wood-clad structures to be built on Columbia Street, and remains the only one dating from the fire reconstruction to survive in the downtown. In 1905 the hotel was extended with a one-storey addition that faced Front Street, which two years later was expanded to three stories, resulting in the existing form of the hotel. The original facades were covered in the 1940s, when the Windsor was stuccoed in an attempt to reduce its vulnerability to fire and as a means of updating its Victorian appearance, but much of the original building has been preserved underneath.
The Windsor Hotel is a landmark building that was built to the designs of architects Emil Guenther (born 1855) and T. Van Aken, who were briefly in partnership at this time. Guenther had relocated from the United States to New Westminster just after the Great Fire, and with Van Aken participated in some of the reconstruction. Shortly afterwards, Guenther moved his office to Vancouver, where he specialized in the design of hotels, including the Dominion Hotel, 1900-1901, and the Terminus Hotel, 1901, both of which still stand on Water Street in Gastown.
Additional heritage value lies in the Windsor Hotel's landmark status as a meeting place, retail venue and community institution for over one hundred years. The hotel was built to accommodate a number of retail shops on the ground floor, and later it became a local bar. From 1944 to 1950, the Windsor Hotel was the well-known broadcasting centre for CKNW radio.
Source: Heritage Planning Files, City of New Westminster
Character-Defining Elements:
Key elements that define the heritage character of the Windsor Hotel include its:
- corner lot location on at a prominent corner at Columbia, Front and Begbie Streets, with facades facing three main streets, part of a grouping of late Victorian and Edwardian era commercial buildings in historic downtown New Westminster
- siting on the property lines, with no setbacks
- three-storey (with lower level) height, chamfered corners at the front and rear, flat roof and cubic massing
- intact elements of the original wooden siding obscured by later stucco, metal and tile cladding
- heavy timber-frame internal structure
- fenestration, including: a regular pattern of window openings on the second floor; intact third floor double-hung 1-over-1 wooden-sash windows under the later metal cladding
- interior features such as the original room configuration on the second and third floors, lath-and-plaster walls, wooden trim, and wood floors
- remaining elements of the CKNW radio studio
- surviving elements of the ground floor bar from the 1940s and 1950s, including separate mens' and ladies and escorts' entrances marked by backlit signs