Royal General Insurance Co. Bronze Lions

The Shorehill Building at 1155 West Pender St is located on the north side of West Pender at Bute in downtown Vancouver. Standing at the entrance are two bronze lion statues owned by the Royal General Insurance Company and recognized on the Vancouver Heritage Register. The bronze lions were commissioned in 1914 from the artist E. Schulte Becham by the Scottish National and Union Insurance Company in Hartford, Connecticut. They were not installed until 1920 due to the delay of World War I.

The company was taken over by Continental Insurance Co. in 1962 and the lions were sent to New York for storage. In 1969, the director for the company remembered the lions and decided they would be suitable for the entrance of their new modern building.

The Shorehill Building is one of Vancouver’s older office towers, it was built in 1967 and designed by McCarter, Nairne Partners. They were well known for designing the Marine Building, along with other landmarks such as the Post Office Building and the long-since demolished Georgia Medical Dental Building.

Source

City of Vancouver -Vancouver Heritage Resource Inventory Phase II document, Changing Vancouver Blog