2715 Blackwood Street

ARCHITECTURE:

This small Colonial Bungalow with Arts & Crafts detailing was based on a 1909 plan by designer/builder James Fairall, but was constructed by the owner Frank Fisher two years later with several significant modifications, including reversing the front façade. It still has triple windows around the house but they are now casements divided 1/2 with stained glass transoms. A door has been added to the windows in the small, well-detailed dormer and they have been pushed back into the room, creating a small sleeping porch sheltered by shingled walls and a cozy wrap-around balustrade. This dormer design was currently popular, e.g. the Hooper and Watkins-designed 1863 Oak Bay Av from 1908, and Hooper’s own home from 1900, now at 243 Kingston St, James Bay. The house has a high shingled foundation, topped by a beaded, double-bevel-sided main floor, with a shallow inset corner front porch with square, tapered-chamfer posts, double-bevelled balustrade, and stepped shingled box balustrades for the steps. The porch is balanced by a cantilevered box bay on the left front façade, there are two more similar box bays on the south wall, the smallest with a pair of stained glass piano windows. With its gently bellcast hipped main and dormer roofs, the size of the roof is visually minimized.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

1911-24: Building contractor Frank Herbert King- Fisher (1880-1970) and Lily Annie (née Woollard, 1880-1946) came to Canada in 1906. They then moved to Vancouver. Frank resided in BC for over 60 years.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

1925: Retirees Thomas Deasy (b. Gibraltar 1856-1936) and Annie Elizabeth (née Smith, b. ENG 1862-1936) (1525 & 1521 Amelia St, North Park) came to Canada in 1859 and 1862, and married in Victoria in 1880. Thomas earned $1,200 as Victoria Fire Chief in 1901, and they lived above the Cormorant St Firehall.

1926: Mary Agnes Poore (née Cambridge, b. Banffshire, SCT 1867-1948), widow of retired naval officer John Henry Poore (b. IRL 1863-1923), and her youngest daughter Caroline “Carol” Mary Cambridge Poore (b. Belfast, IRL 1903), a cashier at HBC. The Poore family immigrated to Canada in 1920.

1927: James Archibald Gibbs, a driver for Vancouver Island Milk Producers Assoc, married Carol Poore in this house in 1926 and they lived here for the next year. During WWII the Gibbs lived at 1030 Terrace Av, Rockland, with Carol’s sister Olivia.

1928-32: Ivan Jeffrey Stephen (b. ON ) and Maude Evelyn (née Lusse, then Keddy, b. Victoria 1891-1979). Ivan, who came to BC in 1910, joined the BCER as a streetcar operator and worked his way up to sub-traffic inspector. During WWI he served overseas with the 15th Brigade, Canadian Garrison Artillery (CGA) and as a gunner with the 58th Brigade CGA. Ivan died of appendicitis at 36 just four days after moving to this residence. Maude worked as a waitress.

1933-37: Salesman Alfred Raymond Longley (1906-1973) married Minnie Lawson in 1937.

1938-43: Robert George Hale (b. Portsmouth, ENG 1896-1952) and Margaret (née Bell, b. Vancouver) married in 1923. Robert came to Victoria in 1902. He worked for the BCCSS for many years, and was a shipper at the Esquimalt Dockyard when he died of a heart attack.

1944-79: James Ernest Speed (b. Victoria 1889-1967) married Evelena Stanhouse Campbell (b. Victoria 1891-1941) in 1913. His grandparents, Thomas William and Ellen/Helen Speed came to Victoria in 1863; Speed Av in Victoria was named for them. James later married twice-widowed Maude Evelyn Stephen, who had lived in this house in 1928-32. James was a warehouseman for 20 years with Kelly Douglas & Co until he retired in 1962. He had previously worked for R.P. Rithet and Macdonald’s Consolidated. Maude was still in the house at her death in 1979.