Most Big Ideas start out the same—bleak but viewed with single-mindedness and great optimism. Such was the opening of the Shaughnessy Golf Club in Vancouver in 1911. I’ve seen the photos and bleak but optimistic is the only way to describe it.
The land that the golf course sat on was in the second phase of Shaughnessy Heights, a new neighbourhood just outside the boundaries of the very young city. Plots hadn’t been selling well enough for the CPR’s real estate branch, who claimed that they owned the land and the development rights. The land had been clearcut/logged, and the now-empty look of it added to the struggle of convincing the city’s moneyed residents to move that far out of the heart of the city (which, residentially speaking, was the West End). The CPR marketers hit upon the idea that an exclusive golf club planted at the very furthest border of the new subdivision, with guaranteed club membership for Shaughnessy property buyers, would spark wild enthusiasm for their real estate. They set aside 109 acres for a golf course with that in mind. Land was cheap enough to do that sort of thing back then.
Nine prominent businessmen, all Shaughnessy Heights homeowners, applied to become the first sitting board of the prospective golf and country club, and were given the lease on the land by CPR, which they continued to renew until 1960. The private golf club developed the course to have 13 holes on the west side of Oak Street, and another 5 holes over on the east side of Oak. Golfers would just mosey across the street as needed, but Oak Street had become a busy artery by 1960 and even had a bus route running along that corridor. That turned out to be very inconvenient for golfers trying to make their shots. Also, rimming the golf club were houses on the Shaughnessy lots that bordered the course, as the neighbourhood built right up to the course’s edges.
The club wasn’t very pleased with the whole arrangement and their records show that they had started looking for new digs as early as 1920. Once they finally decided on a suitable new location in 1960, they gave their notice, moved away from the original spot, and updated their club name.
Good for them, but NOW what?
Thankfully, CPR didn’t immediately turn the no longer used golf course into the cash cow that they could have by slicing up the land into lots and selling it off piece by piece. Instead, the land sat quietly abandoned for several years while the city of Vancouver and the CPR thought about what to do.
Well, the site wasn’t COMPLETELY abandoned. The citizens of Vancouver promptly started using the now unserviced but intact golf course to play free rounds of admittedly rough golf. Also seemingly free was all of that lush putting green grass that had been lovingly encouraged and maintained for years by professional groundskeepers. The very believable Vancouver legend holds that there are plenty of front lawns in Shaughnessy that owe their luxurious expanses to sod that was ‘transplanted’ from the former golf course. Nocturnally.
Once the golf club had moved off the land, some parts of it were allocated for different uses. Those 25 acres on the east side of Oak Street were allocated for a new secondary school, several playing fields, and some parkland, and a 4-block stretch west of Oak and south from 37th Avenue was converted into housing and a seniors’ home and care centre.
That left 67 acres. The idea of leaving the land as a park or turning it into a public garden had been floating around for several years until a hardcore group of local gardening enthusiasts (you know how gardeners can be) finally received the backing of the city fathers to go ahead with the whole garden scheme IF they could figure out a way to raise the 2 million dollars that CPR was asking, and agreed to leave the CPR with the building rights to 12 acres for housing.
DEAL!
An anonymous donor offered up 1 million dollars to the cause and the rest of the funding was raised between the city and the province, along with donations gathered by the newly formed Vancouver Botanical Garden Association. Once the land was secured, the work began in earnest.
Four years of building, planting, and designing the 55-acre garden followed, and it was opened to the public with a LOT of fanfare in August of 1975. They decided to name it the VanDusen Botanical Display Gardens in honour of the anonymous million-dollar donor, W.J. VanDusen. So that kind of defeated the anonymity concept. Opening Day was a huge deal—the Kitsilano Boys Band was even brought in to play—and tours of the garden were included in the $1 (a quarter for students) entry fee charged at the door.
The next wave of garden designers with enormous dreams started in 1977 when Roy Forster took over the curating position at the garden. During the following 19 years, prior to his retirement in 1996, 12,000 flowers, trees, and shrubs were added to the array, representing over 3,000 species. In recognition of Mr Forster’s leadership, he was given The Order of Canada in 1998 and had one of the ponds in the garden named after him.
In 2011 there was a reworking of various areas of the garden and a new Visitors’ Centre was built. It currently houses the garden’s library, gift shop, small group space rental, and a café, along with the main entrance to the gardens. There is also a fancy restaurant in the building that was formerly used as the visitors’ centre and it’s nice too, but you can’t really see much of the garden from its tables.
These days, the garden is run jointly by the VBGA and the city’s Parks Board. They have vaulted this garden, through meticulous care, into the must-see realm. There are free tours of the garden upon admission (no longer $1 for adults) and each year sees several garden events and workshops held, including the always-popular Festival of Lights during the Christmas season.
This weekend marks the 50th Anniversary of the VanDusen Botanical Garden’s opening and there are plenty of celebrations happening on Saturday to mark this milestone. From its bleak beginning and evolution into a golf course, to its eventual transformation into the jewel we know it as today, this garden’s rich past has always been part of its radiant present.
And in a weird way, all of this was made possible by a handful of marketing guys in 1911 who just wanted to attract home buyers to the area and sell some real estate.
