Dominion Hotel

The Dominion Hotel is a three-storey masonry commercial building. The Dominion Hotel is valued as an early Gastown Hotel, originally located above a commercial ground floor space, representative of the area’s seasonal population in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The building itself was known as the Sherdahl Block, after its original owner, merchant Swain Sherdahl, who operated a department store on the ground floor called Rubinowitz's Cheapside Departmental Store.

This building is significant as a surviving design by architect Emil Guenther (born 1855), who had a brief but notable career in New Westminster and Vancouver. Prominent early Vancouver builders Theodore ‘Granite’ Horrobin (1861-1919) and J.P. Halden were responsible for its construction.

This building is a fine example of the late use of Victorian Italianate style, dating from the very end of the Victorian era. The exterior also exhibits characteristics of the emerging Romanesque Revival, reflected in the repetitive use of round-headed window openings.

Source

Canada's Historic Places

More information

http://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=2502&pid=0