The Cave to be reborn
Vancouver's renowned nightclub closed in 1981, but it's on its way back, if only in name, to a new location beside the Yale Hotel
By John Mackie, Vancouver SunMarch 27, 2010 1:13 AM The new downtown is built on the grave of many great old nightclubs.
The Palomar, the Marco Polo, Isy's, the Arctic Club, Oil Can Harry's -- they're all gone, and fading from memory. But the coolest old club of them all may be resurrected, almost three decades after it closed.
Waide Luciak of the Yale Hotel wants to open a new version of the Cave at the bottom of The Rolston, a proposed 23-storey residential highrise in the 1300 block of Granville.
Luciak said the new Cave will be 15,000 square feet spread out over three levels. It will probably cost about $4 million to build and feature a wide variety of entertainment, largely aimed at baby boomers.
"It will be live music and a dance club," he said. "A little theatre at times, comedy, fashion shows. We're going to try and stay alive seven days a week."
For fans of the old Cave, the big question is what it will look like. Opened in 1937 at 626 Hornby, the original Cave did in fact resemble a cave, complete with papier mache stalactites hanging from the roof.
The stalactites were probably quite cool in the Depression, and were gloriously kitschy in later years. They were sold for $20 each when the club was torn down in 1981.
Alas, Luciak said that doing a 15,000-square-foot space up like a cave would be too costly.
"[But] I'll try to have a contemporary-art flavour that highlights a couple of elements that reminds us of the [old] Cave," he said.
"I have an idea [to make] a glass chandelier that comes down in the shape of a stalactite.... That might be kind of spectacular."
Putting a nightclub at the bottom of a residential tower is a new concept for Vancouver, which has been moving nightclubs away from residential developments downtown. But Luciak doesn't foresee problems.
"For sure it's rather bold," he said. "But it's that kind of building. I've looked at the units: They're smaller, the target market is the person that's sort of trendy.... [And the bar] will have two entry points. We can get people in quicker, and then not have them dawdling on the street causing noise."
He is still negotiating with the city on capacity, but hopes it will be "600-ish," which would allow him to fill the void between smaller clubs and the Commodore. It would also give him the seats to compete with suburban casino theatres.
The old Cave, with a capacity of 850, was one of three Gordon King built. (The first was in Winnipeg, the other in Edmonton.)
"Originally they had sort of a vaudeville shtick: unicyclists, magic acts and dog acts," recalls big-band legend Dal Richards.
"Then [Gordon's son] Max King came home from the army and booked Lena Horne. That set the parameters of the Cave forever, because people lined up for blocks to see her. He was considered out of his skull because he paid $7,500 for an act, for a week. But from that moment the Cave became the major factor for entertainment."
The list of people who played there from the late 1940s to the 1970s is staggering, from Tony Bennett to Bette Midler, Johnny Cash to Count Basie. The Fifth Dimension and the Supremes played there in the '60s; Doug and the Slugs played there in the '70s.
The Yale Hotel, built in 1888, will be given a full heritage restoration as part of the same redevelopment. It will probably close in early 2011 and reopen in 2012, and Luciak hopes to continue its blues-music format.
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