Personal Space: Inside Old Faithful Founder Walter Manning’s Strathcona Studio

This story was featured in the May 2026 print issue of Vancouver magazine. Get your free print subscription here.

Walter Manning’s lifestyle store—Old Faithful Shop—has made its home in Gastown for 16 years (a second location in Kitsilano opened up in 2022), but according to him, the call of running a general store is something that reaches back much further than a decade and a half. It’s more ancient than all that.

“I’ve got general store owners on both sides of the family,” Newfound­land-born Manning says at his home office—a two-storey carriage house in Strathcona that does triple duty as a studio, kitchen and entertaining hub. “On my mother’s side, my grandmother had a general store. She also had a club at one point—a bar. Everybody would come to her for provisions, and then my grandfather on my dad’s side had a general store as well. It’s kind of a lineage thing.”

Growing up in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Manning would summer back in Newfoundland, watching pallets of beer, provisions and other goods coming in and out of his grandfather’s store, aptly named Walter Manning and Sons. (Manning is the fifth of his name.) Just like his family before him, Manning curates his shop with items that seem like they could be passed down through generations—in his case, handmade clay vases, sturdy but sleekly designed Scandinavian furniture, heirloom wall hangings made with rice straw. “I like things that have a timeless quality to them, that are made well, maybe with natural materials,” he says.

This carriage home studio was often used in the past to take photos of the wares he sells over at Old Faithful, but these days he’s doing more cooking and entertaining in the space, thanks to the small kitchen area. The meals he shares with friends are made with the bounty he finds at the farmers market (though he also uses the kitchen to create video content of the food items that can be found at his shop).

As he feeds his guests, his kids are often “ripping around at a set up table outside,” he says. Whether those kids will take on the long-standing, blood-embedded tradition of running a lifestyle store remains to be seen—for now, they just get to bask in the glory of a well-curated space that spans eras and design sensibilities. Lucky them.

Light Me Up

An washi-paper Asano lamp (Chochin Lamp 01 Donguri) set on a side table complements the &Tradition Formakami JH5 pendant lamp, designed by Jaime Hayon, hanging from the ceiling. “I love the Japanese influence from a Spanish designer,” Manning says.

Street Art

Above the Brasilia two-seater sofa hangs a framed image of Vancouver’s Chinatown from yesteryear, a new-to-him acquisition from photographer Fred Herzog’s estate photography collection that sold at the Equinox Gallery last April. “When you see the photo, you know where that is in Chinatown, and the clothes are different, but there’s very similar scenes still in Chinatown right now,” Manning says. “We spend a lot of time in Chinatown. So, when I saw it, I [had] to have it just as a cool, nice memory piece.”

Knot Uncommon

A Yokozuna knot wall hanging by Takubo made with rice straw was also sourced from Manning’s shop, and is an emblem of “strong bonds.” Natural fibres accent almost everything in the place—including a set of Japanese short brooms.

Perfect Bound

Stacks of Japanese magazines lie on surfaces around the home office, sourced from Manning and his family’s travels. “A lot of these Japanese magazines that I really love I used to sell, but sometimes Japanese magazines can be so random. Like, ‘We’re gonna do a whole magazine on the subject of bread.’”

Travelling Tapestry

A Japanese moon phases tapestry calendar hangs in the space, which was gifted to Manning by one of his employees.

Prints Charming

Framed poster prints of playgrounds on Naoshima Island hang on the walls; the images are a collaboration between the Copenhagen-based Poster Club and Manning’s partner, Jennilee Marigomen.

Fruit Forward

A perfectly curated bowl of pears and grapes sits on the dining table, an homage to Manning’s current obsession with farmers markets. “Last summer, I just fell in love with the farmers market… I would get vegetables or fruits or things that I would never have bought because I wouldn’t know what to do with it, so it forced me to figure it out.”