1 2 3 The empire's influence runs to the very roots of the creation of Capilano Golf & Country Club.

It was the year 1891 when a wealthy Englishman unwittingly planted the seed for a grand plan that would forever change the face of Hollyburn Mountain and, in so doing, create Capilano Golf & Country Club.

Textile merchant Harvey Hadden arrived in Vancouver aboard a coastal steamer from San Francisco on advice that there might be some excellent property investment opportunities in the strategically located trans-Canada railway terminus. He spent the summer in Vancouver, population 13,700, looking for and eventually buying large pieces of commercial property in the downtown area. Hadden went back to Nottingham, England and upon a return trip to Vancouver 12 years later purchased a 160-acre property west of the Capilano River on Vancouver's North Shore.

The nature-loving industrialist built Hadden Hall as his country home on a solid rock ridge 700 feet up Hollyburn Mountain near the current location of Capilano's clubhouse, and enjoyed many summers at his idyllic west coast retreat before the outbreak of the First World War. Hadden returned to Vancouver just once more after that period, and the beautiful home he built was left unoccupied for 15 years before burning to the ground in an accidental fire. (see sidebar)

The dream of 'Little Hercules'

The idea of a golf course on the pristine property first took flight six years earlier, in 1926, when two developers approached West Vancouver municipality with equally ambitious plans to build courses as anchors for real estate ventures: one an 18-hole course on the "Old Hadden Hall" site; the other a 9-hole layout on the far west corner of the municipality near Horseshoe Bay. The latter proposal won the day, and today municipally owned Gleneagles Golf Course is a scenically stunning public golf course surrounded by equally beautiful homes.

The vision of a golf course west of the Capilano River did not diminish, however, especially in the mind of Vancouver entrepreneur A.J.T. Taylor.
¨The dream was already simmering in his mind when the successful financial entrepreneur took his family from Vancouver to England in 1927 and established a family residence in Weybridge, Surrey. The house was on St. George’s Hill golf course, and although Taylor was no golfer and knew little about the game, the proximity to that lovely layout in Surrey undoubtedly helped plant the seed of his grand plan for the distant forest in West Vancouver.

Taylor set up his new investment business in London, at an address on Rabbit Lane, and quickly nurtured friends in high places to whom he spread the gospel of West Vancouver as a land of investment opportunities.

As those who dealt with A.J.T. knew all too well, he was not a man to sit about and wait for things to come to him. In the summer of 1930, Taylor made one of his occasional visits back to Vancouver, accompanied by a wealthy London financier named W. S. Eyre. Upon arrival in Vancouver and after a ferry ride across Burrard Inlet to West Vancouver, the Englishman was thoroughly sold on the merits of property investment there for his and other British interests, including the wealthy Guinness brewery family. Upon his and Taylor’s return to London, the British Pacific Properties Company was incorporated and Taylor was made a director, along with Eyre.

On the sea voyage back to London following his Vancouver visit with Eyre, Taylor met an old Vancouver friend, H. H. Stevens, a Member of Parliament in Prime Minister R. B. Bennett’s government who had real estate interests in the Lower Mainland, including an option to purchase 2,000 acres of West Vancouver land for a very low price.
Stevens told Taylor that he would be happy to relinquish the option, and upon Taylor’s arrival in England a cable was dispatched to the Municipality of West Vancouver requesting that the option be transferred to Taylor’s name. There was no problem in this simple transaction, and the transfer was made.

At the same time, Taylor learned that the Municipality was also holding another larger tract of land that was also available at a rather attractive price. This property, totalling 4,000 acres, rose well up the face of Hollyburn and stretched clear to the little Howe Sound settlement of Horseshoe Bay, 10 miles to the west.

British Pacific Properties

An arrangement was made for the purchase of the entire 6,000 acres of choice wooded hillside, with the deal backed by Guinness money through the family’s Iveagh Trust. The price was $20 an acre, plus the payment of back taxes, which were said to be nominal. The British Pacific Properties Company had arrived, buying this magnificent wooded 6,000-acre tract of West Vancouver property for $120,000 and change. Now the business at hand was to get a bridge built over the First Narrows to provide quick and easy access from Vancouver to the burgeoning subdivision.

Thanks to some skillful politicking, Taylor’s vision came one step closer to reality on Dec. 14, 1933, the day an overwhelming majority of Vancouver citizens voted in a citywide plebiscite in favour of a bridge connecting Stanley Park to the North Shore (17,806 in favour, 7,615 against).