Look to your left for a striking three-story brick building with tall arched windows and elegant iron balconies. In nineteen oh seven, the Vancouver Elks Lodge pooled their resources to purchase this corner lot for ninety five hundred dollars, a sum equal to over three hundred thousand dollars today. Much like the community crowdfunding that built the Evergreen Hotel we just saw, these fraternal brothers banded together to forge a grand sanctuary of their own, cementing a permanent stronghold in a rapidly shifting city.
They hired Portland architect Robert F. Tegan to design their temple, completed in nineteen eleven. Tegan's architectural ambition shines through the ornate brickwork and Mission Revival style, an aesthetic inspired by old Spanish colonial missions, which served as a bold symbol of the city's growing prestige. Tegan was an Elk himself, and quite the local celebrity, once making headlines for a grueling forty two hundred mile road trip to Mexico. His personal life was rockier, however. He divorced his wife Winifred in nineteen twenty and abruptly abandoned the Pacific Northwest for San Francisco.
Still, his masterpiece endured. This was once the tallest building in downtown Vancouver! The lodge leased the ground floor to shops while reserving the upper floors for billiards, card rooms, and massive civic gatherings. They cultivated deep patriotism here, launching elaborate honor guard ceremonies for Flag Day. Eventually, as membership dwindled, the overwhelming financial weight of the massive structure forced them to sell in nineteen seventy three. Today, it survives as the last fraternal lodge building downtown, preserving the memory of a brotherhood that fought to build a lasting civic anchor.
Keep an eye out for the fascinating Art Deco building nearby, and then let us continue our four minute walk to the Vancouver Telephone Building.
