A little ingenuity with lighting and the creation of living ‘areas’ can introduce artful focal points to one-room expansiveness

Michael Sasges
Sun

The first warehouse converted into homes in Vancouver history is not located in Yaletown or Gastown, but at 550 Beatty in the Victory Square, or Crosstown, neighbourhood.

The conversion started more than 25 years ago.

The warehouse was built 100 years ago when the CPR decided to build a line north from its Yaletown yards at False Creek.

The building’s centenary was the reason a representative of the strata council there called me this spring to ask if Sun readers might be interested in the ”occasion.”

In the collective memory and experience of the occupants of Vancouver’s first loft-conversion, I suggested, is a window on “loft” residency that might answer the “big question” every loft-occupant has answered and every loft prospector, and lookie-lou, looks forward to answering: What can you do and not do in an open-plan, post-and-beam, high-ceiling home?

Certainly you can entertain, with equal ease, hordes and intimates.

”I can have 50 people over and be able to see them all from any one point in the room,” says Jeff Gruber, owner of a one-storey loft at 550 Beatty.

“You can’t do that in an apartment divided into dens and enclosed solariums and mini-bedrooms.”

Tony Wade-Cooper, owner of a 1 1/2-storey loft, says: ”Living in a loft is unusual in the fact that we have no formal sleeping space. When guests come to stay on the sofa bed in the living room, they have to be good friends, because we can chat as if it were a dorm.”

Shirley and Stan Langtry installed a curtain to provide their overnight guests with some privacy.

Rooms need hospitable focal points. Without them, occupants are left to gaze at each other, uncomfortable after a while even for young lovers.

Lofts are no exception to the focal-point requirement, but impose on their occupants an obligation to not introduce focal-point content that detracts from the loft’s first quality, its expansiveness.

As one Internet discussion reported on a designer’s refurbishment of a Manhattan loft: ”While the rooms had to provide inviting focal points, the loft also had to maintain its sense of openness.”

The Langtrys consider the ”open space” of their 550 Beatty home a favourite feature.

To protect it, or at least to avoid diminishing it, they ”quickly personalized” their home

”The greatest thing about a loft is the openness,” says Jeff Gruber, who has a bedroom in his loft.

”You don’t want to close things off by creating partitions. The trick is not to create partitions, but to create areas, or activity centres.

”For example, my living room is the space encompassing my couches, television and coffee table and is defined by the large rug underneath them all.

”A living room is supposed to be comfortable, someplace you can take your shoes off and relax. The rug outlines that area and provides the comfort you want from a living room.

”Lighting is another way to help define spaces and areas without putting up partitions. All you need to do is turn on the lights in the “dining area” and leave the rest in the dark — dimmers are everywhere!”

Open spaces under high ceilings and enclosed by exposed building materials and big windows are the essential features of a loft-home.

Location in a building whose original industrial or commercial look and feel were retained during conversion or in a building evocative of industrial or commercial purpose is desirable.

The preservation of the old freight elevator in a conversion is also desirable, although not with everybody. ”Fortunately we don’t have the loft-style lift which, while charming, is really impractical in this day and age,” Tony Wade-Cooper comments.

The homes in 550 Beatty are “hard” lofts, not because the living is hard, but because the building materials of the original construction, brick and cast iron and timber post and beams, possess a “harder” quality and are the basis of the design.

A ”soft” loft, conversely, is a residence in a new-construction building, although it may be finished with “hard” materials.

Is the only home worthy of the appellation “loft home” a home in a converted industrial building or a “hard” loft?

Replies Jeff Gruber: ”Although there is no official definition of a loft that I know of, I do know that a loft must have at least one of: location in a building converted from industrial use to residential, very high ceilings, exposed building materials and large open spaces, with very few doors or interior walls.

”Imitation is flattery and having a loft that encompasses all of a loft’s characteristics makes it all the more unique.

“But you can’t imitate a ‘hard’ loft; it either is or it isn’t. You can, however, create a space with ‘loft-type’ characteristics.”

Comments Tony Wade-Cooper: ”Some of the ‘loft homes’ I have seen springing up in Yaletown are so small. They would be better called ‘open-plan’ homes. To me a loft has high ceilings, old walls, some brick.”

Internet reporting on, and discussions of, loft homes attribute to their creation and occupancy a good-for-the-commonwealth quality. The “good citizen” champions of loft conversion and residency make two points:

[1] Residency in converted industrial spaces is better for the environment than new construction or less of an imposition on the environment than new construction and, further, conversion facilitates – gawd bless us, one and all – densification.

[2] Residency in converted industrial spaces helps to maintain historical streetscapes.

Shirley and Stan Langtry and Jeff Gruber are doubtful their occupancy of their 550 Beatty homes has made the natural world a better place. Comments Jeff:

”Converting an industrial space to residential is usually a nightmare for developers because of all the seismic upgrades and retrofitting.

”It’s like any major renovation; it’s easier just starting from scratch than trying to work around some existing constraints.

”In the end the amount of material used is probably not that much less. It’s the heritage conservation that really makes a difference.”

The solidity of the homes, however, may mean less power consumed to heat and cool residents, Tony Wade-Cooper says. ”The thick walls absorb the heat during the day and keep it warm at night, and relatively cool in the summer.”

Shirley and Stan Langtry think it possible their residency in a 550 Beatty home might have a historical purpose. Tony Wade-Cooper and Jeff Gruber are certain they’re doing good work by being there.

”Lofts in Vancouver are centred around a few select neighborhoods like Yaletown, Gastown and Crosstown,” Jeff comments.

” . . . . It’s the fact that you’re not just helping maintain a single building, but often an entire block or neighborhood.

”I have a black and white picture above my fireplace of the 500 block Beatty from 1927 with my loft in the background – parking was a problem even back then!

”It’s great walking down the street and seeing the block just as it was 100 years ago,wondering about all the lives lived inside the same walls in which you’re now living.”

Says Tony: ”Why not maintain some history? We have precious little of it here! Even the new buildings are trying to fit into the style of the [old] buildings.”

Tony says he will have some “fitting in” of his own to do, next fall or next year when the inaugural residents of a new apartment across the street move in.

”It will be interesting to see what we can’t do now that there is a building going up over the road.

”I am not used to drawing my blinds at night. Now, I guess, I will have to.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

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