ARCHITECTURE:
Illahie is a signature work of Samuel Maclure’s Tudor Revival Arts & Crafts style, as is 1770 Rockland Av. It is a 2½-storey, steeply-hip-roofed house with 2½-storey gabled bays and a gabled dormer on the main entrance façade and one 2½-storey gabled bay on the St. Charles garden façade. There is a 2-storey gabled bay on the right side of the house and a double-gabled wing on the rear. The house has flat-roofed, hipped and gabled dormers. There are balconies over both the main entrance porch and the garden façade porch. The porches have curved arches and square posts on concrete-capped stone balustrades; the concrete steps have concrete-capped, stepped stone balustrades. All gables and dormers have finials; the four main gables are bracketed and jettied on corbels. The main floor is clad in random granite, the upper floor and gables are half-timbered and stuccoed. The rear is shingled. There are four tall, ribbed and corbelled brick chimneys. 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.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1907-41: Charles Fox Todd (1856- 1941) was the son of Jacob Hunter Todd, 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), Charles’s much younger brothers by Jacob’s second wife, Rosanna (423 Chadwick Pl), 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:
1943-63: For $5,000, Andrew Murdoch(k) converted Illahie into the six-suite Villa St. Charles Apts. In 1949-54 Andrew was renting his own accommodation at 1900 Belmont Av. He was also proprietor of Fawcett Apts (2603 Douglas St) and Cyn-Do-Myr Apts (425 Michigan St) at various times. From 1955-62 he was once again living at 1041 St Charles.