Rosewood Hotel Georgia

On the morning of 7 May 1927 the Hotel Georgia opened its doors at the corner of Georgia and Howe streets in Vancouver, twelve storeys of brick and terracotta in the Georgian Revival style facing the provincial courthouse, now the Vancouver Art Gallery. Rosewood Hotel Georgia is that building, restored between 2006 and 2011 and reopened in July 2011 as the first Rosewood in Canada.

History

The hotel was designed by Robert T. Garrow and John Graham of Seattle for a syndicate of local businessmen and was the city's smart address between the wars. Edward, Prince of Wales, stayed in its first year. Over the following decades the register took in Errol Flynn, Katharine Hepburn, Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole, who were able to stay there when other Vancouver hotels turned away Black performers. Elvis Presley took a floor in 1957 before his Empire Stadium show, and the Beatles stayed in August 1964 on their first Canadian date. By the 1990s the building had slipped down the city's rankings, and in 2006 it closed. The developer Delta Land, with Rosewood as operator, spent five years on a restoration that stripped later additions, rebuilt the interiors and added the Private Residences tower behind, and the hotel reopened in July 2011.

Architecture and design

The exterior was returned to its 1927 appearance, with the brick cleaned, the terracotta repaired and the original bronze canopy and signage reinstated. Inside, the ground-floor rooms were rebuilt around the surviving plasterwork and the old lobby's proportions, with the Spanish Ballroom on the mezzanine restored as the hotel's set piece. Bedrooms were reconfigured so that the count fell to 156, which gave each room the size the 1927 plan never had. The 48-storey residential tower that rose on the site behind the hotel paid for the work and houses the pool and spa on its lower floors.

Rooms and suites

There are 156 rooms and suites, finished in pale wood, cream and grey with marble bathrooms. Rooms on the Georgia Street side face the art gallery and the Hotel Vancouver's copper roof; those higher up have views to the North Shore mountains. The largest suites sit on the upper floors with dining rooms and, in the case of the top suite, a terrace.

Dining

Hawksworth Restaurant opened with the hotel in 2011 under the Vancouver chef David Hawksworth and has been one of the city's reference dining rooms since, with a series of rooms running along Georgia Street, including a bar and a private room under a glass chandelier. Reflections is the terrace bar on the fourth floor, an open-air garden with fire pits that operates through the summer. The 1927 Lobby Lounge serves afternoon tea and cocktails off the lobby, and Prohibition, in the basement, is a bar named for the speakeasy that ran there in the hotel's early years.

Wellness

Sense, A Rosewood Spa, occupies the lower floors of the tower with treatment rooms, a eucalyptus steam room and a gym. The indoor saltwater lap pool, 16 metres long, has a wall of windows onto the city and is one of the better hotel pools in Vancouver.

Weddings and events

The Spanish Ballroom, restored to its 1927 state with its coffered ceiling and chandeliers, is the principal wedding and banquet room. The Reflections terrace is used for summer receptions, and Hawksworth's private dining room for dinners. Smaller meeting rooms are on the mezzanine. The hotel sits across the street from the art gallery plaza, a frequent location for wedding photographs.

Location

The hotel is in the centre of downtown Vancouver, on West Georgia Street between Howe and Hornby. Robson Street shopping is a block away, the Pacific Centre mall across the road, and the Canada Place cruise terminal and the waterfront ten minutes on foot. Vancouver City Centre station on the Canada Line is at the corner; the train runs to Vancouver International Airport in about 25 minutes. Stanley Park is a 20-minute walk west along Georgia. Among luxury hotels in Vancouver it is the one with the longest history and the most central position.