West Vancouver Art Museum set to move to waterfront Horseshoe Bay building in 2026
Relocation is temporary while the District of West Vancouver moves forward on plans for a larger purpose-built arts and culture facility
A Horseshoe Bay building that formerly housed the Boathouse restaurant will be converted into the new home of the West Vancouver Art Museum. Photo by Ken Campbell
THE WEST VANCOUVER Art Museum will make a major move into a new space next year.
The District of West Vancouver has purchased the former Boathouse restaurant—a waterfront building at Sewell’s Landing in Horseshoe Bay—for $2.7 million, with plans to convert it into the museum’s home for the foreseeable future. The space is slated to open by spring 2026.
Exhibition and programming areas will take up approximately 8,800 square feet of the building, which is more than double the space available inside the museum’s current site at the Gertrude Lawson House (a former private residence just across the street from the West Vancouver Municipal Hall). The top floor of the Horseshoe Bay location will be converted into the main exhibition space, while the bottom floor will house a collection of indoor and outdoor programming and gathering areas, plus a catering kitchen, gift shop, and administrative offices.
Pantea Haghighi, the West Vancouver Art Museum’s new administrator and curator, will oversee the move. The relocation to Horseshoe Bay is meant to be temporary while the District of West Vancouver moves forward on long-term plans for a new purpose-built arts and culture facility, as outlined in a 2019 plan.
The plan states that the art museum is one of four buildings in the district that have been deemed “inappropriate for providing arts and culture programming and activities and are in poor overall condition”; the others are the Ferry Building Gallery, the Silk Purse Arts Centre, and the Music Box gallery, which are all located close to each other along the waterfront in Ambleside.
Once the museum and its collection from the Gertrude Lawson House move to Horseshoe Bay, the Music Box (which is also an old residential building) will be demolished to create more waterfront green space. Its staff, programs, and artwork will be relocated to other nearby arts and culture spaces, including the new museum.
One of the district’s goals outlined in its recently released 2025–29 Arts & Culture Strategy Update is to confirm a location for a new arts and culture facility “so that staff can develop a business plan and fundraising plan to ensure it is affordable for taxpayers”. Plans so far state that the building will provide at least 21,000 square feet of multipurpose exhibition, rehearsal, and performance spaces for the community. 
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