POLYGON GALLERY SET FOR OFFICIAL OPENING
SHIER DELIGHT: Anticipating its official opening on Nov. 17, the 25,000-square-foot Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver held an art auction chaired by board president Iain Mant and artist Stan Douglas.
The waterfront facility’s name recognizes Polygon Homes, whose founder, Michael Audain, and CEO, Neil Chrystal, were greeted by gallery director Reid Shier.
Audain launched the project by donating $4 million from Polygon Homes and his and wife Yoshiko’s foundation.
North Vancouver, Victoria and Ottawa jointly added $7.5 million, plus the city’s land donation.
Other major donors included Brigitte and Henning Freybe, the Chan Family Foundation, TD Bank Group, Denna Homes, and Dennis and Phyllis Washington, whose 225-foot yacht Attessa III gets to moor alongside.
The project “finished up half-amillion under budget,” said contractor Roland Haebler. Without penny-pinching, either.
Architects John and Patricia Patkau lauded board members for rejecting a money-saving proposal to have street-level pillars support the building’s cantilevered upper floors.
PERSIA POWER: Psychotherapist Marjaneh Halati jetted here from London’s tony Knightsbridge district to help support 500 disadvantaged young women in her native Iran.
At a fundraiser in the LivingSpace home furnishings emporium, Halati reported on the Omid Foundation she launched in 2005.
Zohreh Waibel and Mana Jalalian-Ghayoumpour sparkplugged the event, Joy TV’s Carmen Ruiz y Laza was the MC, and “the Bob Dylan of Iran,” Mohsen Namjoo, entertained.
Attendee Hamid Abdollahi cofounded the Recon Instruments firm that developed heads-updisplay sports glasses before Intel paid $175 million for it.
IN A NAME: Speedo swimwear salesperson Kelly Townsend spent three years persuading Toronto Boobyball founder MJ DeCoteau to take the plunge in Vancouver. She prevailed, and the under-40s-oriented event ran at the Imperial recently with the subtitle Get Physical. It benefited Rethink Breast Cancer, a charity DeCoteau launched in 2002 to support a friend with cancer. It grew to “respond to the unique needs of young women going through it.”
Boobyballs also run in Calgary, Halifax and Ottawa.
“Everything was geared for the older generation,” sport and event marketing grad Townsend said, meaning big-time charities whose galas raise seven figures.
Although Rethink Breast Cancer’s total has yet to reach $5 million, its seemingly realistic 2017 target is $540,000
BOTTOMS UP: Tank car loads of whisky have been quaffed at the Vancouver Club since 1893. More went down the hatch recently when Penguin Random House Canada had sommelier-author Davin de Kergommeaux dish out flights of rye along with information from his revised Canadian Whisky: The New Portable Expert.
Packed with distilling history and modern-day industrial insight, the book contains straightforward guidance on gaining tasting skills that would serve wine drinkers, too.
Self-described “malt maniac” de Kergommeaux’s exuberance sometimes bubbles like a distillery fermenter.
“Three-year-old all-rye-grain whisky races around on your palate like a puppy with a toy,” he says.
WAG PARTY: For those who prefer puppies, the SPCA’s recent Offleashed gala had guests cuddle a litter of collie-husky-beagles. Tracey Wade chaired and Wayne Deans was advisory chair of an event that reportedly raised $500,000 for programs that include a pet food bank and free outpatient veterinary clinics that serve 6,500 pet guardians annually.
GOOD IDEA: Redevelopment of its Seventh-at-Keith campus might see the Vancouver SPCA add 120 kennels. For humans, not animals.
According to condo marketer Bob Rennie, the nascent scheme would include 250-square-foot units of “desperately needed student rental housing.”
With Vancouver Community College, Emily Carr University and a SkyTrain station all close, units would help fund the SPCA’s own 50,000-square-foot redevelopment while retaining its property.
“Non-profits should never let their land go,” Rennie said.
STILL ROSY: Blushing Boutique owner Shelley Klassen’s past literally flashed before her eyes recently. That was during her Richards Street store’s 10th anniversary, when models showed garments the Niagara Falls native began designing and making in 1999.
BIGGER, BETTER: It was 2001 when Granville Island-based Bodacious boutique’s now sole owner, Lorna Ketler, focused on “a fun, funky and sexy gap in the market for size 14 to 28 womenswear. It’s not just buying clothes. It’s how you celebrate your body.”
That’s still Bodacious’ credo. Gone, though, is a doorway sign that read: “Forget love. I’d rather fall in chocolate.”
PARRYDIDDLES: Slovenian ambassador Marjan Cencen has given the Museum of Anthropology a sheepskin kurent costume that unmarried men wore to chase away winter. … Colleen Carson’s new The Guyed Book helps men get along better with women. … The literary magazine Capilano Review (thecapilanoreview.com) would get along better with some cash donations.
DOWN PARRYSCOPE: Car names capitalize on electricity pioneers Tesla and Volta, but there’s still room for a battery-powered RV called Ampere Campere.