ARCHITECTURE:
This 1-1/2 story Craftsman house with a raised basement, was built between 1910 and 1911. A multi-gabled roof protects the wood siding and shingle clad building with its distinctive veranda and entrance stairs. The designation of the property is limited to the building footprint.
The Craftsman form and style is exemplary in the asymmetrical massing and detailing of this house. The multi-gabled roof has deep overhanging eaves with burnt-orange bargeboards. The gable peaks are clad with stucco and half- timbering above the string-courses, with multi-pane casements adorning the front and back gables. A grand entrance staircase clad in painted wooden shingles, leads up to a veranda, and complements the style of the house. Square posts with capitals set on wooden balustrades, some solid and some with balusters, support the overhead veranda roof. Exposed structural rafters decorate the underside of the veranda roof. An additional defining feature can be found in the beaded, double-bevelled siding over the wood shingle cladding on all four elevations of the house.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
The house was built by Alfred Jones Abbot, a builder and contractor in early Victoria who is listed on the construction documents of 12 buildings in the city. These include 2407 Fernwood Road and 2403 Fernwood Road, also still standing, next door. Alfred came to Victoria in 1906 with his wife Florence Eleanor Beaven via Winnipeg, after emigrating from Devon, England, where he was born. Mr. Abbott enlisted with the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force, Forestry Engineers in April of 1917, and was transferred to the Railroad Construction Company during the First World War. After returning home, he and Florence spent their lives in Victoria as active community and congregation members, with Alfred serving as a warden in St. Barnabas’ Church, located in southern Fernwood. In 1910, a building permit was secured in his name for what was then Lot 4 on Fernwood Road and the house, valued at $2,100.00, was completed by 1911.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
Robert Greaves is then listed in the BC City Directory as its first occupant in 1914.
Robert William Hancock Frayne, a local mechanic, is listed as a resident from 1916 when he took out a permit to add a garage on to the back of the property. After the initial two years Robert’s name appears on the tax records and then in 1922 the house is transferred into his wife, Lily Mae’s name, as the tax payer. Robert and Lily Mae lived on the property with their children until 1937. In 1917 Robert built the Fernwood Garage kitty-corner at 2320 Fernwood Road. The garage was associated with Imperial Oil and the name is shown on photographs as Imperial Fernwood Esso Service in the 1960s & 70’s. The building still stands today and over 100 years later is it still operating as a garage, now Fernwood Auto Service.
This house has been in continuous occupation as a home for over 110 years and today offers three units of housing in separate suites.