Accidental fire at long-standing Vancouver strip-club
Posted November 30, 2011 8:14 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Vancouver firefighters were treading where Frank Sinatra, Gary Cooper, and Errol Flynn once played. Crews had to fight through a tangle of back rooms and passageways to put out a fire at the infamous Penthouse Nightclub downtown.
From its early burlesque days to the current shows, the Penthouse has seen everything from police raids and Hollywood greats to shady dealings, prostitution, and even murder; all under the continuous ownership of the Fillipone family.
The back rooms were hot for all the wrong reasons after 4 a.m. today when a smoky fire started by accident in a dressing room, giving firefighters a rare behind-the-scenes look at a building with some colourful history.
“It was a difficult fire in that it is an old building with a lot of void spaces. It was difficult to find our way through with all the doorways and passageways that have been shut or closed or modified over the years,” explains Vancouver Fire Battalion Chief Randy Hebenton.
The upper rooms are usually closed to the public, including the Green Room, which is frozen in the early 1970s with green cut-velvet wallpaper. The Penthouse’s original grand piano is still housed upstairs. Afew years ago, a treasure trove of vintage photos was found in a secret space behind a wall.
“The family was very helpful with providing us keys and maps of the building,” says Hebenton, prompting a laugh from one reporter who suggested firefighters probably didn’t need a map of the Penthouse.
Damage to the club isn’t bad; it’s mostly from the smoke.
