The Westin Bayshore is a hotel overlooking
Coal Harbour
Coal Harbour is a section of Burrard Inlet lying between Vancouver's Downtown Peninsula and the Brockton Point of Stanley Park. It has also now become the name of the neighbourhood adjacent to its southern shoreline.
Neighbourhood
Coal Harbou ...
in
Vancouver
Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...
,
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...
.
Description
The hotel has 499 rooms in two buildings, a low-rise structure built in 1961 and a newer tower built in 1970.
History
The Bayshore Inn was developed by local Vancouver businessmen Hugh Martin and Douglas Welch, through their Marwell Construction company. The site was previously tidal flats in Coal Harbour. Four and a half acres were reclaimed by dumping fill and sinking concrete piles 40 feet down to bedrock. Welch and Martin originally planned to build a motel on the site. However, when they partnered with Seattle-based Western Hotels, the chain's head,
Edward Carlson
Edward Carlson (June 4, 1911 – April 3, 1990), was an American hotel and airline executive, and Seattle, Washington civic leader. , convinced them to build a full-service resort hotel. Marwell and Western shared the $6 million construction cost. The hotel was the first to be constructed from scratch by Western Hotels, which had previously built its business on assuming management of already operating hotels up and down the West Coast.
The 308-room hotel was designed by Vancouver architect Douglas C. Simpson in a T shape, with a low-rise four-story wing facing the street, and a taller eight-story wing jutting out towards the water. The Bayshore Inn opened on March 27, 1961. The chain became Western International Hotels in 1963. The tower wing was added in 1970.
On March 14, 1972, the world's most famous fugitive billionaire,
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American Aerospace engineering, aerospace engineer, business magnate, film producer, and investor. He was The World's Billionaires, one of the richest and most influential peo ...
, moved into the hotel. The eccentric business magnate lived in the hotel's three-room, top-floor penthouse for 6 months, and was never seen outside of his room, despite the media's best attempts to photograph him.
The Bayshore Inn was renamed The Westin Bayshore when the hotel chain was renamed Westin Hotels in 1981.
The hotel complex was sold in November 2015 for $290 million, which represented the largest single-asset sale in Canada in 2015 and a record for a Vancouver hotel on both a per-key and gross-value basis.
See also
References
External links
*
Hotel buildings completed in 1961
Hotels established in 1961
Hotels in Vancouver
Westin hotels
1961 establishments in British Columbia
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