13 Historic Vancouver Hotels and the Stories Behind Them

Some of Vancouver’s hotels have been taking guests for more than 100 years. Others were built for loggers and fishermen working the seasons. Those buildings usually had shops on the ground floor and rooms upstairs. A few are gone entirely. Their stories still say a lot about how this city grew, drank, partied and housed people.

The neon tells part of it. In 1953, Neon Products counted 19,000 neon signs in the City of Vancouver, roughly one for every 18 residents. Hotel signs were among the best known. The rest of the story is in the buildings. There’s a royal opening on West Georgia, a jazz-era bandleader on the hotel roof, what the Sylvia calls Vancouver’s first cocktail lounge, a tiki room on East Hastings and a billionaire who checked into Coal Harbour and stayed for almost six months.

This guide covers the hotels you can still walk into, the ones that are now people’s homes, and the ones that only survive in photos. For each one, you’ll get what to look for, why it matters and how to get there.

13. Balmoral Hotel site (Downtown Eastside)

The Balmoral was a nine-storey, Chicago-style early skyscraper with Edwardian details. Parr and Fee, the same firm behind the Hotel Europe, designed it. It was built in 1911 and 1912 and opened as an upscale hotel for wealthy visitors and business travellers.

Its neon sign went up in the 1940s and became one of the most famous in the city. Decades of neglect followed. The city ordered the building demolished in 2022, and city crews took the sign down that June so it could be assessed off-site. Where the sign is now isn’t publicly known. The City of Vancouver says demolition finished in 2024, while Vancouver Heritage Foundation says 2025. BIV reports that construction of new housing could begin in 2027.

The site is in the 100 block of East Hastings, between Main and Columbia, and it is vacant. To see the Balmoral at its peak, look at the archive photos. City of Vancouver Archives and CBC have images that include the 1940s bar and a street view from around 1926.

12. Empire Landmark Hotel and Cloud 9, now demolished (West End)

For 44 years, a 42-storey tower stood at Robson and Nicola. It opened in 1973 as the Sheraton Landmark and later became the Empire Landmark. On top was Cloud 9, a revolving restaurant and one of only two in Vancouver.

The hotel closed at the end of September 2017. CBC reported that Cloud 9 dining-room reservations had been impossible to get for weeks before it closed. Crews then took the tower down floor by floor in 2018 and 2019 to make way for condo towers.

If you want the same rotating view today, the city’s other revolving restaurant is at Harbour Centre. Vancouver Is Awesome pointed readers there when Cloud 9 closed.

11. Stanley and New Fountain Hotels (Gastown)

These two façades on West Cordova explain how Gastown’s hotels came to be. The New Fountain dates to 1899. Grant and Henderson designed the Stanley in 1906, after new liquor laws took effect on July 1 of that year. Those laws abolished free-standing saloons. A bar now needed a hotel attached, so hotels went up along Cordova. Both buildings were investments for Evans, Coleman and Evans, merchants and shipping agents.

In 1971 they were renovated into what the Canadian Register calls the city’s first privately developed rent-controlled housing. The most recent change kept only the historic façades. New construction behind them opened in 2023: a five-storey Stanley building with 80 supportive homes, plus a separate 11-storey building with 62 market rentals.

They are across from the former Army & Navy store. Walk around to Blood Alley to see the back of the buildings and the restored mews that links the alley to Cordova. These are homes, so look from the street.

10. Hotel Europe (Gastown)

The Hotel Europe is a six-storey, brick-faced flatiron on a narrow triangular lot at Maple Tree Square. Hemphill Brothers built it in 1908 and 1909 for a commercial travellers’ hotel business. The Vancouver architects Parr and Fee designed it. Destination Vancouver calls it the first fireproof hotel in Western Canada.

Filmmakers like it. It has appeared in The Changeling and Legends of the Fall, among others. Since a 1983 restoration by Adolph Ingre and Associates, it has been affordable housing.

Walk east along Water Street to the square. The wedge shape reads best from there, and that is also where you’ll get the photo. People live here, so shoot from the sidewalk and leave the doors alone.

9. The Burrard (Downtown, West End edge)

The Burrard opened in 1956 as a motor inn, and it still plays up its mid-century look. The hotel has 72 rooms arranged around a garden courtyard.

It has less royal history than the big downtown hotels. What it shows you is a later chapter, the motor inn years. The hotel publishes its own vintage Vancouver itinerary if you want to keep the theme going.

It’s on Burrard Street across from St. Paul’s Hospital. It makes a natural stop if you’re walking from the downtown hotels toward the Sylvia at English Bay.

8. Ivanhoe Hotel (Main Street, Strathcona)

The Ivanhoe stands at Main and National, across from Pacific Central Station. Heritage Vancouver lists it as the former VanDecar Hotel, built in 1907. Vancouver Heritage Foundation is more careful and says the original construction date isn’t known.

It belongs to a surviving cluster of early hotels and shops on what was once Westminster Avenue, the main road to New Westminster. Some buildings on this stretch were built to face both Main and Station streets.

The ground-floor Ivanhoe Pub says it has been serving Main Street since 1907. It is open to the public. Before you leave, walk around to Station Street to see the double-fronted buildings Heritage Vancouver points to.

7. Dominion Hotel and the Lamplighter (Gastown)

The Dominion stands at the corner of Water and Abbott. It is one of Gastown’s early hotels, with rooms built above a ground-floor shop. The building was known as the Sherdahl Block. Its first tenant was a department store called Rubinowitz’s Cheapside Departmental Store. Emil Guenther was the architect. Look near the cornice for the Sherdahl Block name.

The date depends on the source. The Lamplighter says the building has stood since 1899, and other histories say 1900. The pub has been on the ground floor for decades. It says it received the first beer parlour licence issued in BC after Prohibition was repealed. That is the pub’s own claim.

The rooms upstairs are now homes. PHS began running them as 63 low-barrier supportive housing units in March 2026. The pub is open to the public, and its entrance is around the corner at 92 Water Street. The building is a short walk from Waterfront Station.

6. Waldorf Hotel (East Hastings, near Commercial Drive)

The Waldorf is a white Streamline Moderne building from 1947 and 1948, designed by Mercer & Mercer. It opened with 25 hotel rooms and a large beer parlour on the ground floor.

The tiki rooms are the reason to go. In 1954 and 1955 the same architects added the Tahitian Cocktail Lounge. It has a midnight-blue half-dome ceiling, fake palm trees and bamboo matting. Heritage Vancouver calls these the oldest surviving Polynesian tiki rooms in Western Canada. Look for the black velvet paintings by Edgar Leeteg.

The building nearly went in 2013, when the property was sold to a developer. The Save the Waldorf campaign gathered 19,000 signatures. Event listings show it still hosting shows in 2026. Booking sites still list rooms under the name Hotel at the Waldorf. The bar has often opened only for events, so check what’s on before you head out.

5. St. Regis Hotel (Downtown)

Look for the red neon sign on the corner of Dunsmuir and Seymour. The St. Regis opened in 1913. The City of Vancouver heritage plaque on the building says it is the last downtown hotel from before the First World War that still runs as a hotel. Plenty of its old neighbours were lost or turned into something else. This one kept renting rooms.

The people behind it connect it to two other city landmarks. W.T. Whiteway, the architect of the Sun Tower, designed it. E.J. Ryan was the builder, and he went on to build the current Hotel Vancouver.

Today the St. Regis is an independent hotel with 65 rooms. It has no connection to Marriott’s St. Regis brand, so don’t mix them up when you book. Forbes Travel Guide says a SkyTrain stop is steps from the entrance. Read the plaque on the building while you’re there.

4. Westin Bayshore (Coal Harbour)

The Bayshore Inn opened on the Coal Harbour waterfront in March 1961. A 20-storey tower was added in 1970. Today it operates as the Westin Bayshore.

Its most famous guest arrived on March 14, 1972. Billionaire Howard Hughes checked in with his entourage and stayed almost six months. Global News reports that he never left his room and no one ever saw him. It also reports that the hotel still has a Howard Hughes Suite.

The hotel is on the Coal Harbour seawall at the entrance to Stanley Park. You can pair it with the Sylvia by following the seawall through the park. Wear proper shoes and bring a rain layer, because the walk is longer than it looks on a map.

3. Rosewood Hotel Georgia (Downtown)

The Hotel Georgia opened on May 7, 1927, at the corner of Georgia and Howe. Rosewood says it hosted a who’s who of the entertainment world over the years. The names it gives include Elvis Presley, Nat “King” Cole and Katharine Hepburn, as well as British royalty.

The comeback had good timing. After a full restoration, the building reopened as Rosewood Hotel Georgia in 2011. The official opening was set for May 7, exactly 84 years to the day after the first one, but local reports say the first guests checked in that July. A second renovation followed in 2024. The hotel now has 156 rooms.

You don’t need a room to go inside. The 1927 Lounge, named for the opening year, and the Georgia Bar are both open to the public. Rosewood’s Our Story page lists The Art of Tea in the 1927 Lounge on Saturdays and Sundays.

The hotel faces the Vancouver Art Gallery and is a block from the Fairmont. You can see both on a short walk along Georgia.

2. Sylvia Hotel (English Bay, West End)

Vines cover the Gilford Street side of the Sylvia (the hotel calls it Boston ivy), which makes it easy to pick out on English Bay. The building sits beside Stanley Park. It is listed in the A category on the Vancouver Heritage Register, and the city designated it a heritage building in 1975.

It was built in 1912 and opened as an apartment building on May 3, 1913, named after the original owner’s daughter. The Depression hit the business hard, and in 1936 it became an apartment hotel. During the Second World War, rooms were turned over to merchant marine crews. It was once the tallest building in the West End. Sources disagree on when it lost that title: the hotel says 1956 and Vancouver Heritage Foundation says 1958.

On July 2, 1954, its medieval-themed Tilting Room opened. The hotel says it was Vancouver’s first cocktail lounge. The hotel says Malcolm Lowry and Errol Flynn drank there. You can read more on the hotel’s history page.

The restaurant and lounge are open to the public, and the hotel calls itself one of the few publicly accessible heritage buildings in Vancouver. It has 120 rooms and suites and on-site parking. The hotel describes itself as 5 minutes from downtown.

1. Fairmont Hotel Vancouver (Downtown)

The green copper roof on West Georgia is the one most people picture when they think of an old Vancouver hotel. Look up and you’ll also spot gargoyles. Fairmont markets the building as the Castle in the City, and the chateau roofline explains why. The lobby is open to the public because this is still a working hotel.

This is the third hotel to carry the Hotel Vancouver name. The first one opened on May 16, 1888. Construction on this building started in 1928, and the Depression stretched the job to 11 years. Archibald and Schofield were the architects. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth officially opened it in May 1939 during their Royal Tour. The exact day depends on who you ask. Fairmont’s story page and CBC say May 29, and a Fairmont press release says May 25.

The hotel also has a musical history. From 1940 to 1965, bandleader Dal Richards led the band in the Panorama Roof lounge, and CBC Radio carried his music across the country. A multi-year $75-million renovation finished in 2019. It restored the 14th-floor heritage suites, including the rooms the king and queen used.

City Centre Station on the Canada Line is next door, and so is the Vancouver Art Gallery. If you’re booking a stay, Fairmont has a residents’ offer for BC, Washington and Alberta that includes free self-parking this season (check the offer page for current booking dates). Local tip: Forbes Travel Guide says the concierge desk can arrange a short, informal history tour if you ask.

Where you can still go inside

• The Fairmont Hotel Vancouver lobby on West Georgia.
• The 1927 Lounge and Georgia Bar at the Rosewood Hotel Georgia. The Art of Tea runs Saturdays and Sundays, according to Rosewood.
• The Sylvia’s restaurant and lounge on English Bay.
• The Lamplighter pub in the Dominion at Water and Abbott.
• The Ivanhoe Pub on Main.
• The Waldorf’s tiki rooms, which open for events.

Several of these buildings are homes

The Hotel Europe is affordable housing. The upper floors of the Dominion and the new Stanley building behind the Stanley and New Fountain façades are supportive housing, and the building next to it has market rentals. Look and take photos from the public sidewalk, and don’t go into residential lobbies. The Balmoral is a vacant site, so there’s nothing to see beyond the gap in the block.

Getting around

• Downtown: City Centre Station is next to the Fairmont. The Rosewood Georgia is a block away, and a SkyTrain stop is steps from the St. Regis.
• West End and Coal Harbour: The Burrard is on the way to the Sylvia at English Bay. The Westin Bayshore is on the seawall at the entrance to Stanley Park, and the Empire Landmark site is at Robson and Nicola.
• Gastown: The Dominion is a short walk from Waterfront Station. The Stanley and New Fountain are on West Cordova, and the Hotel Europe is at Maple Tree Square.
• East of downtown: The Balmoral site is on the 100 block of East Hastings. The Ivanhoe faces Pacific Central Station on Main, and the Waldorf is on East Hastings near Commercial Drive.

Go prepared

This is a city walk across several neighbourhoods, and the seawall leg between the Bayshore and the Sylvia through Stanley Park is a long stretch. Wear shoes you can walk in and carry a rain layer. Check event listings before you head to the Waldorf, because its rooms often open only for shows.

See the old signs and lost buildings in archive photos

City of Vancouver Archives and CBC hold historic photos of the Balmoral, from its early decades. The Archives has also released Neon Products sign design records from about 1945 to 1964. Those records are the best way to see the city’s hotel neon era.

Who designed them: architects and builders behind the hotels

Hotel	Year	Architect or builder
New Fountain Hotel	1899	Not recorded (built for owners Evans, Coleman and Evans)
Dominion Hotel	1899 or 1900	Emil Guenther (architect)
Stanley Hotel	1906	Grant and Henderson (architects)
Hotel Europe	1908 to 1909	Parr and Fee (architects); Hemphill Brothers (builders)
Balmoral Hotel	1911 to 1912	Parr and Fee (architects)
St. Regis Hotel	1913	W.T. Whiteway (architect); E.J. Ryan (builder)
Hotel Vancouver (Fairmont)	1939	Archibald and Schofield (architects)
Waldorf Hotel	1947 to 1948	Mercer & Mercer (architects)

You can cover most of this in a day on foot and transit. Start under the copper roof on West Georgia and end with a tiki drink on East Hastings if the Waldorf has an event on. Along the way you’ll see how these buildings changed jobs. Royal hotels became luxury rooms, and workers’ hotels became homes. A few became empty lots. The ones still standing are worth a slower look.

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Photo credits

• Cigarette billboards Vancouver 1932.jpg by Neon Products (Commissioner), Public domain (combined into a montage, cropped). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Cambie Hostel.jpg by Alain Limoges from Vancouver, BC, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0 (combined into a montage, cropped). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Gastown (6157415937).jpg by Francisco Anzola, CC BY 2.0 (combined into a montage, cropped). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Eveready Prestone Antifreeze billboard Vancouver 1932.jpg by Neon Products (Commissioner), Public domain (combined into a montage, cropped). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Hotel Vancouver 01.JPG by Xicotencatl, CC BY-SA 4.0 (resized; cropped for the featured image). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Vancouver Hotel Georgia 2011.jpg by Canadian2006, CC BY-SA 3.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Sylvia hotel vancouver.jpg by Usgnus, CC BY-SA 3.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Hotel Europe Gastown (1).jpg by Abhinaba Basu from Redmond, United States, CC BY 2.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Dominion Hotel Vancouver.jpg by Canadian2006, CC BY-SA 3.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• 36 Blood Alley 05.JPG by Xiao23, CC BY-SA 3.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Street closure (6157415005).jpg by Francisco Anzola, CC BY 2.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Waldorf Hotel Vancouver 1.jpg by kennethaw88, CC BY 4.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Vancouver St Regis Hotel 2010.jpg by Canadian2006, CC BY-SA 3.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Ivanhoe Hotel Vancouver.jpg by Canadian2006, CC BY-SA 3.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Burrard Hotel, Vancouver (2012).JPG by Another Believer, CC BY-SA 3.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• The Westin Bayshore 2018.jpg by Wpcpey, CC BY-SA 4.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Empire Landmark Hotel 2019a.jpg by Canadian2006, CC BY-SA 4.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.