Vancouver British Columbia - Shaughnessy Heights was conceived in 1907 as an elite neighbourhood by the Canadian Pacific Railway.
Named after the company president, Thomas Shaughnessy, it boasted giant lots, graceful curving streets, and a master design by landscape architect Frederick
Todd.
The C.P.R. spent $1 million on the 250 acre neighbourhood before a single lot was sold.
To keep out the riff-raff, the company insisted that any homes built there had to cost at least $6,000, six times the price of a regular home.
The C.P.R. also retained the right to reject any design it didn't consider up to snuff.
It worked.
There's a great Philip Timms photo in the Vancouver Archives showing buyers lined up around the block to purchase Shaughnessy lots when they went on sale in
September, 1909.
But sales must have slowed during the First World War, because on 9 Nov 1919 the C.P.R. took out a full-page ad in The Vancouver Sunday Sun to tout
Shaughnessy as "one of the leading, if not the finest, residential sections in the Dominion."
The headline was "A City's Soul Lies in Its Homes."
Which is quite timely today, given that Vancouver just designated Shaughnessy a Heritage Conservation District to protect those homes.
The ad was illustrated with photos of the grand mansions in the area.
Around the photos are reams of hype about the glorious neighbourhood, and the glorious company that developed it.
The anonymous writer must have been a big sports fan, because they went on about the C.P.R.'s contributions to the city's athletic scene.
"As a man is known by his deeds, so is any group of men, or corporation," it reads.
"The C.P.R. is not a realty firm. It is a transportation company. But in blazing the path of progress it has not ignored the fact that there is more to
life than mere commercial conquest. THE PROOF OF THIS LIES IN THE FACT THE C.P.R. IS SPONSOR FOR PRACTICALLY ALL OF THE LEADING ATHLETIC AND RECREATION CLUBS
IN THE CITY. Not only that, but it is backing these clubs morally and financially."
Taxes seemed to be a sore point to the C.P.R.
The writer noted that the company paid $183,888 in taxes to the municipality of Point Grey, where Shaughnessy was located.
(Point Grey was a separate municipality from 1908 to 1928. It was south of 16th and west of Cambie, with a jog north of 16th up Alma to the
water.)
The C.P.R. had a high tax bill because it had been given most of the west side as a land grant by the province in 1885.
But the writer failed to mention that.
He did point out that the Shaughnessy Heights Golf Club had been "endowed" with "the most extensive benefits."
And that the C.P.R. owned the course, which is where Van Dusen Gardens is today.
The C.P.R. included "a parks system" in its "social welfare policy."
Community clubs and playgrounds were being built, which "invite men's families to be neighbourly and to get out and mingle socially."
There was also a new public school going up in Point Grey, "costing $96,000."
"Around it are six acres of barren waste, just mud," said the ad.
"But when the contractors have finished and the building is complete, landscape artists will transform it into a park and lawn, on which happy little
children might romp and play."
The C.P.R. would develop Shaughnessy in three parts.
According to a 1929 story in The Sun, First Shaughnessy was between 16th Avenue and King Edward (25th), and Oak Street to the Lulu Island Railway.
(Today we call it the Arbutus Corridor.)
Second Shaughnessy was between King Edward and 37th, and Third Shaughnessy was between 37th and 41st.
Many of the streets are named after C.P.R. officials, (Richard) Angus, (Richard) Marpole, (Charles) Hosmer, (Edmund) Osler, and (Augustus) Nanton.
Marguerite Street is named after Thomas Shaughnessy's daughter.
Like much of Vancouver, Shaughnessy suffered during the Great Depression, and during the Second World War many of its grand homes were turned into rooming
houses.
But it rebounded in the 1950s, and retains its cachet as one of the Dominion's elite residential neighbourhoods.
John Mackie.
