When the McRae family built their extraordinary house at the top of the hill at 16th and Granville, no expense was spared. And that extended to the garden where McRae hired a New York based landscape firm to design the ornamental gardens and terraced lawns that surrounded the house. To supply the household’s food needs a kitchen garden was established on the triangle of land between 15th and 16th Avenues at Granville.

In 1956 the garden became the site for Hycroft Towers, the modernist apartment building designed by the Vancouver firm of Semmens and Simpson. Its stark, clean lines were so striking that they even influenced a line of contemporary ceramic tableware named for the building.