The Standard Building is almost a classic, one of those dowager brick piles that somehow survived the 1970s wrecking ball and is now protected by law. It's one of downtown Vancouver's last pre-war office towers, and has a certain old world charm. Far less elegant than its small, ornate lobby is the scruffy side entrance, next to a Mexican food joint and a busy bus stop, where restless self-talkers and vagrants scrounge for cigarette butts.
A doorway leads downstairs to a basement level office suite, headquarters for Aquilini Investment Group Inc. The space seems surprisingly down-market for a private family business with assets thought to be worth something in the low billions. Then again, the Aquilinis aren't fancy folk. Unlike other moneyed West Coast moguls - the Giustras and the Pattisons, say - they don't rub shoulders with Hollywood celebrities and former U.S. presidents, or cruise with Oprah in the mega-yacht.
