ARCHITECTURE:
Craigmont is an asymmetrical, front-gabled Chalet-style Arts & Crafts house with wide, bracketed eaves. There is a flat-roofed dormer on the right and gabled and flat-roofed dormers on the left. The front façade has a a wide balcony with sawn balusters featuring hearts between low, square panelled posts. Below is an entry porch with recessed door and sidelights. The porch has shallow arches between shingled, tapered piers. On the upper floor is a bank of multi-paned leaded lights, on the lower are multi-paned leaded lights and multi-paned-over-one windows. The cladding is cedar shingle, with stone foundation. There are four brick chimneys.
The interior of the home also demonstrates the talents that new associate C.C. Fox brought to Maclure’s practice. Fox was trained in the office of C.F.A. Voysey, one of Britain’s foremost Arts & Crafts architects. Maclure used a cross-axial main floor design to provide Craigmont with expansive principal rooms that share a central hall, to maximize the views and light throughout the house. The Voysey element of the heart motif is continued on the staircase railings and the dining room sideboard hardware. However the refinement of the woodwork, the expert use of local woods, and the meticulous attention to design detailing, such as the built-in furniture and fireplace mantles, was Maclure’s signature.
When the house was purchased by Sarah Finalyson in 1911 she commissioned the Maclure firm to complete a substantial one-storey rear addition. The same exterior elements were utilized to create a seamless addition that provided a spacious main floor terrace. The addition also included more servant quarters and workrooms to ensure that the home functioned well for its society families.
Poised on a steep slope, Craigmont is located to take in the views over Oak Bay and the San Juan islands.*
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1905-11: Harold Alexander Munn (b. PEI 1860-1939) and Kate Stafford (née Williams, then Morrow, b. Victoria 1868-1952). Kate was a widow when she married Harold in 1897. Harold came to Victoria in 1883 and engaged in real estate and insurance he retired in 1924. He was elected to Victoria City Council for a number of years.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1911-35: Sarah Susette Finlayson (b. Victoria 1860-1935) lived here until her death. She was the daughter of HBC Factor and early Victoria mayor Roderick Finlayson and Sarah (née Work). Sarah never married and devoted much of her life to charitable activities.
1936-39: Vacant.
1940-82: James Islay Mutter (b. island of Islay, SCT 1874-1950) and Jean Moffat (née Van Norman, b. Bobcaygeon, ON 1892-1982). The Mutter family emigrated from Germany to Scotland and operated the Bowmore Distillery from 1837-90. They came to BC in 1891 and settled in the Duncan area, where James and Jean were married in 1914. James was a financial agent. He was a North Cowichan councillor for many years, and was Reeve in 1914 and 1918-19. The Mutters came to Victoria in 1929. From 1925-45 James was proprietor of the Port Renfrew Hotel and Store (destroyed by fire in 2003). Their daughter Isabella married Maurice A. Palmer, manager of Les Palmer tailors, and they lived in this house in the mid-1940s. In 1951 Jean remarried, to James Harry Beatty (1890-1966), a native of Frankford, ON, who came here in 1913. He was the owner of Sprott-Shaw Business School for 51 years before retiring in 1963. During WWI and WWII, his school trained many radio operators for the RCN and the Merchant Navy. The school fared well through the Depression by offering business and commercial training. James was Victoria’s MLA from 1928-33. He was president of the Victoria Chamber of Commerce and an active member of the Rotary Club. Jean remained in this house until her death.
*Maclure research by Jim Wolf
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