ex-funeral home reborn as live venue

Ex-funeral home reborn as live venue

The Chapel, in the Downtown Eastside, makes its debut this Friday and Saturday with a concert from Barney Bentall

The Vancouver Sun

Thursday, December 7, 2006

By John Mackie

Everybody's always looking for something different. And boy, did Nathan Wiens ever find it.

Wiens is the proud owner of Vancouver's newest and most unique performing arts venue, The Chapel. What makes it so unique? It's located in an old art deco funeral home at 304 Dunlevy, smack dab in the middle of the Downtown Eastside.

Because it was a funeral home, the building came with (and was zoned for) a hall. So the entrepreneurial Wiens spent several months sprucing it up, and has opened it as a multi-purpose spot for most anything: art shows, live theatre, movie shoots and private parties.

This Friday and Saturday night, The Chapel will make its debut as a live concert venue, when Barney Bentall and the Legendary Hearts take the stage as part of the Grand Cariboo Opry, a Christmas benefit show for the Potluck Cafe Society, which provides meals to people in the Downtown Eastside.

Fourteen musicians will be taking part in the Opry, which has an old time country and western theme. The name and rotating singers concept were partly inspired by the Grand Old Opry, but the real genesis was some raucous shows that Bentall and the Legendary Hearts have played the last few years at the Clinton Rodeo, near a ranch he owns.

"We would have these big rehearsals at the kitchen or the ranch house the night before [the rodeo shows]," says Bentall.

"I thought, 'Why don't we do a series of charity events?' I came up with the name the Grand Cariboo Opry, because that was pretty central to it, the fact that it started in the Cariboo."

The Grand Cariboo Opry kicked off last weekend in Ashcroft at the Ashcroft Opera House, a gorgeous venue built way back in 1889.

"It's not an opera house with gilded ceilings, [but] it's wooden and it's old," says Bentall. "And all the musicians that have played there think it's about the nicest sounding room you could ever play in."

The gig was so much fun, they filmed and recorded it for a DVD. Now comes part two at The Chapel, which is small and intimate (125 seats) and is perfectly situated for a Downtown Eastside benefit show. Tickets are $40, and are available through the Potluck Cafe (call 604-609-7368 or e-mail info@potluckcatering.com).

The Chapel is quite unlike any other venue in Vancouver, maybe in Canada. The southern part of the building is believed to date back to 1892 or 1893, was added onto in 1911 or 1912, then finished in 1936, when the facade was given an art deco treatment to make it all seem like one structure. It started off as a house, then became Armstrong and Hotson Undertakers about 1912, when the building was expanded.

The interior is incredible, with high ceilings and all sorts of delightfully quirky spaces. The performing space is in the 1936 addition, which was formerly the funeral chapel. Next door to the chapel is a hidden interior driveway where the hearse would come in to pick up some poor soul for their final taxi.

On the other side of the chapel performing space is the original chapel for the 1912 addition, which features beautiful wood panelled walls. This is now used as a reception area between sets; a bar can be set up in either the 1936 chapel or the 1890s chapel (the bar is on wheels, so it's portable).

Upstairs is the former coffin showroom, which has been converted to an art gallery, where you will find stunning sculptural wooden pieces like a $25,000 bed made out of burled walnut.

The bed was made by Wiens, 43, who has done pieces for people like Diana Krall and her manager, Steve Macklam.

Wiens hails from Regina, where his father is the renowned prairie architect Clifford Wiens. He's a longtime friend of Regina products Colin James and New Pornographer Kurt Dahle; in fact, he used to play in a high school band with James.

"We were called Nick Danger," he laughs.

"I think we played as Free Beer and Pizza for a couple of shows. We had a huge draw, but people were totally disappointed [when there wasn't free beer and pizza].

"That was [Colin's] momentary punk and pop era. It lasted about a year, year and a half. We had lots of originals, and they were awful. They couldn't find a bass player, so they taught me to go klunk, klunk, klunk."

Weins put his musical career on hold to come to Vancouver during Expo 86, where he worked doing installations with Saskatchewan artist Edward Poitras. Since then he's worked as an artist and producer.

"I have been producing different forms of creative things, whether it be the movie business, the rock and roll business, or the construction business," Weins says.

His big break came when he bought a small building near the Seymour street exit off the Granville Bridge. He declines to give any figures, but basically he bought it for cheap, then sold it for a small fortune when a high-rise developer came knocking.

"I was by Carlos and Bud's, and made way for future high-rises," he says. "I refused a few [developers], then I got an offer that worked."

Weins went looking for a new studio, and found an amazing space in a former garage at Dunlevy and Cordova. It was huge (7,500 square feet) and had incredibly high ceilings (22 feet), but there was a catch: He had to buy the funeral home across Dunlevy, which was owned by the same company.

He wound up purchasing two buildings on five lots for $1.05 million, then spent several hundred thousand more fixing them up. It's a lot of money to invest in a neighbourhood infamous for its social and drug problems, but he's very optimistic about the Downtown Eastside's future. He notes that there are artists galore in the area and neighbouring Strathcona, and all sorts of cool old buildings are being converted into cultural venues.

"You've got the Chapel, you've got the Firehall theatre, you've got Bill Vince's [movie theatre on Main street]," he says.

"We'll soon have the Pantages theatre [on Hastings] and the Simon Fraser University performing centre, which is part of a huge development [at the Woodward's site]. That will make this kind of the cultural district. This neighbourhood has the potential to be a cultural hub."

He's doing his bit to make this happen. Eleven experimental theatre groups recently teamed up at The Chapel for a show called Hive, where different plays were put on in different areas of the building. The rock band 54-40 did some recording in the 1936 chapel space.

Three movies have filmed in the building. The skateboard company Skull Skates used The Chapel as the site of its 30th anniversary party, and it has also been the site of a couple of art shows.

"It's not a funeral home anymore, it's Vancouver's most unique venue slash gallery," Wiens says with a smile.