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BC B U S I N E SS NOVEM B ER/ D ECEM B ER 2025 | 79 Tony Colangelo purchased from Netflix's The Crown, bedroom fixtures that feel like royal heirlooms, fine china from the Savoy Hotel and a Rembrandt (sort of ). "At first I thought, okay, I'll just buy a couple of pieces of antiques, because a little accent piece here and there would be great," says Moy. "Then I said, if I don't go big I can't do this properly. So I decided: I'm just going to go big." The 67-year-old founder of Aragon Properties exudes a kind of youthful energy, with his tousled hair and Con- verse. He admits he'd never run a hotel or a restaurant and didn't particularly care for antiques before this all began. But he now finds himself elbows-deep in curated maximalism, cataloguing centuries-old walnut desks and designing wine cellars around weeping granite walls. "I don't think there's anything else like it in Canada," says Moy. From condos to castles This is an unusual development for Aragon Properties. Typically, the 37-year-old company focuses on planned communities, mid-level residential projects and mixed- use commercial spaces around the Metro Vancouver suburbs. The renovation of the inn is the centrepiece of a larger $200-million real estate development on the 1.7-hectare site, which includes three six-storey condo buildings, six townhomes and 179 residences. Aragon self-finances without pre-sales, so the com- pany has largely avoided the crash in B.C. real estate's investor class that forced some projects to stall out or convert to purpose-built rentals mid-stream. Still, it's a tricky time to come online. High interest rates, limp rents and government crackdowns have squeezed out much of B.C.'s investor class. Moy delayed the launch six to eight months to wait it out, then polished the project further. Sales opened July 11. One-bedroom units range in the $600,000s for between 610 and 690 square feet, rising to $1.2 million for more spacious two-bedrooms. The three-bedroom penthouse collection tops out at $1.6 million. Inside the maximalist manor The beating heart of the development, though, is the Rosemead hotel. The three-storey stone mansion was built as a busi- nessman's residence in 1906, then converted to a guest- house after the Second World War. Over the years, it floundered as a hotel and restaurant, sliding into despair and near-insolvency. "Everything has been taken apart and put back together," says Moy, including large portions of the roof, siding, railings and refurbished stained glass windows. On our visit, Moy pulls up to the towering wrought- iron Buckingham Palace gates, shipped from the U.K. after an auction of items created for the hit TV show. "I thought this would be neat to do," says Moy. The gates slowly swing open as he drives inside to a driveway flanked by towering old trees. He stops. It must be hard to impress a wealthy developer with more than 100 projects under his belt. But Moy is grinning and giggling. "That was an awesome experience," he says. Entering the lobby, you are hit by a wave of tex- tures and colours—dark green wood panelling, yellow flowered William Morris wallpaper, red velvet drapery, deep wood framing and rich carpets of floral green and pink. A fire flickers. Modern elements collide, including an enormous LED chandelier of pearl necklace beads. Up the stairs to the landing is "The Crown Library," with drapery that came from the TV show's reproduc- tion of the queen's bedroom, gold-coloured Versailles pedestal towers and an enormous reproduction of Rem- brandt's Storm on the Sea of Galilee that Moy acquired from the Kevin Hart film Lift. Cataloguing a collection fit for royalty Moy began purchasing antiques while visiting his daugh- ter at university in the U.K. He raided the Savoy and Dorchester hotels, estate sales and antique houses, shipping crate upon crate back to Victoria. It all landed in a warehouse where designer Karen Wichert photographed, labelled and catalogued the items in a spreadsheet known as "the antique bible." The only comparison Wichert can make is when she worked on a palace for the emir of Qatar, where the furniture budget was $44 million. ("That's the only MAXIMUM IMPACT The Grand Lobby of the Rosemead Hotel bears a rich collection of textures and colours, including yellow flowered wallpaper, red velvet drapes and an LED pearl necklace chandelier.

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