ARCHITECTURE:
Illahie is a 2½-storey, steeply-hip-roofed Tudor Revival house with 2½-storey gabled bays. There is one bay on the main St. Charles façade, two on the right side garden façade, one on the rear, and a double-gabled wing on the left side. The house has flat-roofed, hipped and gabled dormers. Also between the two bays is a garden entrance porch with curved arches and square posts supporting a balustraded balcony; the posts sit on concrete-capped stone balustrades. The main façade has on centrally-located concrete steps leading to a full-width porch under a balcony, similar to the right side. All gables and dormers have finials; three gables are bracketed and jettied on corbels, the front with a jettied apex. The main floor is clad in random granite, the upper floor and gables are half-timbered and stuccoed. The left side is stuccoed and half-timbered, with shingles on the rear. There are four tall, ribbed and corbelled brick chimneys. The interior entrance hall is one of Maclure’s finest spaces. Some of the interior features are Heritage-Designated. New accommodation at the rear is built on the footprint of the original coachhouse. The house cost $16,000 in 1907. Illahie is a signature work of Samuel Maclure, as is 1770 Rockland Av.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1907-41: Charles Fox Todd (1856- 1941) was the son of Jacob Hunter Todd (see Harris Green History), one of BC’s early canning pioneers and merchants. Born in Brampton, ON, Charles came to Vancouver Island with his family in 1862. He was educated at Upper Canada College in Toronto before entering the family business. He became a full partner at 21, and when his father became involved in politics, Charles ran the business. His educational background and interest in world events contributed to the success of J.H Todd & Sons in BC and around the world, particularly Great Britain, which was the main market for their Horseshoe Brand sockeye salmon.
The Todds’ first cannery was in Richmond on the Fraser River. They purchased others and opened the Empire Cannery in Esquimalt in 1905. At Jacob’s death in 1899, equal shares of the business were left to his three sons, Charles, Jack and Bert. Charles continued in the business, while Jack and Bert (721 Linden, Rockland), Charles’s much younger brothers by Jacob’s second wife, Rosanna (1525 Shasta Pl, Rockland, 423 Chadwick Pl, Gonzales), left to pursue other interests.
In 1884 Charles married Louisa Norris (1860-1930) who came with her family from Bowmanville, ON, in 1863, and for 20 years they lived at 218 Johnson St , several doors east of his father Jacob Hunter Todd.
It later became McCall Brothers Funeral Parlour (house demolished 1960, see Harris Green History). Louisa’s father Frederick Norris established a saddlery and leather shop on Government St in 1874; the business remained in the family until 1956. Norris St near UVic was named for him. Charles and Louisa had two sons, William Charles, who entered the family business (944 St. Charles), and Ernest Dain Todd. Ernest was a partner in Gillespie Hart & Todd, real estate, with John Hebden Gillespie, who married Charles’s stepsister May Todd, and future BC Premier John Hart. Like his father and brother, Ernest commissioned Samuel Maclure to design his home, Dainhurst, built in 1912 at 508 Island Rd in Oak Bay.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1942: Ann (née Wells, 1873-1965) and Herbert John Galliford (1869-1955) came from England after WWI. Herbert retired as a gardener in 1945, and they lived in 1036 St. Charles St in 1942-55. 1943: For $5,000, Andrew Murdoch converted Illahie into the six-suite Villa St. Charles Apartments.
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