`Dine in the Sky' at the Sylvia Hotel
Every renovation brought an exhortation to try the new restaurant
From 1913 to 1956, the eight-storey Sylvia Hotel was the tallest building in the West End.
To take advantage of its waterfront view over English Bay, the Sylvia's owners operated a restaurant on the top floor.
“Dine in the Sky!” exclaimed an ad in the Feb. 24, 1949, Vancouver Sun and Province. “Beautiful New Top-floor Dining Room at Sylvia Hotel.”
In fact, a restaurant had been operating at the top of The Sylvia since 1936. Like a government announcing a program, again and again, the hotel would announce the restaurant was new every time it did a reno.
In this case, the restaurant had been “completely remodelled and refurnished at a cost of $30,000.” A “French chef ” had been brought in, along with “an Old Country baker” who had worked at the Malibu Club, a chi-chi resort in Princess Louisa Inlet up the coast.
“Rich carpeting,” said the ad. “Relaxing arm chairs ... soft colors ... restful indirect lighting ... snowy Irish table linen ... gleaming silverware ... everything is new, everything contributes to an atmosphere of gracious living!”
The capper was that there was live music on the Hammond Organ during dinner by Winnifred Renworth, “one of the best-known organists on the Pacific Coast.”
The restaurant was initially dubbed “the Sea-view Dining Room” when it opened in 1936. The “Dine in the Sky” moniker was adopted in 1937.
When it opened, the restaurant had a buffet where you could get soups, hot entrées and a variety of desserts for 50 cents.
“For afternoon teas and bridge parties, (visit) Sylvia Court's Chinese Room,” read an ad on Feb. 27, 1937. “The view from the 8th floor is delightful and the food and service superb!”
But the Chinese Room wasn't all that Chinese — a Nov. 2, 1937 classified ad stated “all foods are home cooked by white help.”
The opening of the restaurant coincided with the shift of the building from an apartment block to a hotel in 1936.
It was called Sylvia Court when it was an apartment block, and remained that way until longtime manager Walter Roberts purchased the building in 1946 and changed it to the Sylvia Hotel.
This is probably when The Sylvia put up a big “Dine in the Sky” neon sign on the corner of the eastern wall of building, complete with a neon arrow pointing to the restaurant. It also had a rooftop neon sign.
The Sylvia had been conceived as a hotel by its original owner, Abraham Goldstein, who named it after his daughter. The architect was W.P. White, who designed a handsome eight-storey brick building with cream terracotta on top.
But the city would only let him build apartments, so on May 3, 1913, it opened as Sylvia Court, a 77-suite “apartment house.”
“Each suite, whether of two, three or four rooms, is furnished with a modern gas stove and a brass concealed (Murphy) bed,” said a full-page ad in The Vancouver Sun the day it opened. “A dumb waiter service is installed in every suite, saving many unnecessary steps.”
According to an unpublished history of the building by Roberts, initially “affluent tenants paid top rentals of the day, ranging from $35 to $65 per month.”
The first tenants were Mr. and Mrs. Ron Kenvyn, who stayed 25 years.
“It was Mrs. Kenvyn who planted the beautiful Virginia creeper vine that today covers most of the building,” wrote Roberts.
Relaxing arm chairs ... soft colors ... restful indirect lighting ... snowy Irish table linen ... gleaming silverware ... everything is new …
But an economic recession hit the city with the advent of the First World War, and rents fell. Goldstein had planned to build two more blocks and name them after his other children, but he wound up selling Sylvia Court for $275,000 in 1923 and moving to Los Angeles.
Vancouver's first cocktail lounge, the Tilting Room, was introduced at the Sylvia in July, 1954. It was illegal for people to look into a bar and see people drinking, so the lounge windows were boarded up or covered up by curtains.
The building was purchased by North Shore builder Norman Sawers in 1960 and is still run by his daughter Jill Davies. It was designated a Vancouver heritage building in 1975, and has 120 rooms and suites.
The Dine in the Sky restaurant closed in 1962, and is now a deluxe penthouse suite.