West Vancouver, British Columbia
Completed 2022 · 2,100 sqft
Photography by Ema Peter
The building has been part of the neighbourhood since 1961. Scott and Furnadjieff designed it as a gas station and grocery store; two structures connected by a breezeway, sheltered by a massive wing-like timber roof. Over sixty years it became a post office, a pharmacy, a market, an auto shop. The solid wood construction, tongue-and-groove ceiling fully exposed, would be impossible to build today. The owner saw what others had stopped seeing: a jewel buried under decades of ad hoc use.
We worked with DAE to strip the building back to its bones — a full gut renovation of half the structure — while keeping the original design intent intact. The timber ceiling stayed. The windows, replaced with operable versions, match the original profiles. The front and back lots were regraded with pavers, patios added, seating tucked along the sheltered breezeway.
What happened at eye level was a conversation between eras. Midcentury leather seating and blown glass pendants sit alongside a turquoise-tiled bar and curvilinear orange wall sconces. A one-of-a-kind Colnago bicycle, custom-painted by graffiti artists Futura and Stash, hangs on the wall. The owner's vintage car collection — including a bright red BMW Isetta microcar that gave the place its name — occupies what was once the gas station.
The café sits where Marine Drive curves past Lighthouse Park, on the way to Cypress Mountain and the Sea-to-Sky. It's a stop for cyclists in Lycra, commuters grabbing coffee, retirees meeting for sandwiches, hikers on their way somewhere else. The building was always a gathering place. We just made sure it could keep being one.
