Heritage Register
Fairfield

1004 Fairfield Road (ex-4 Fairfield Rd, Labouchère)

Built 1892
Heritage-Designated 2000

For: Young & Bartlett

ARCHITECTURE:

This 1½-storey Victorian Vernacular cottage has a front-facing gable and full-width verandah. The exterior is finished in drop siding. Sashes are 1-over-1, double-hung and topped with moulded caps. The entrance is to the right with front-facing steps and has a simple transom. To the left is a pair of windows. Turned posts with brackets support the verandah roof, which over the entrance, is accented by a small portico-like gable. The balustrade is made up of reeded spindles. Handsome bargeboards are reeded in sections and divided by Eastlake-style blocks. The gable has appliqué fretwork fan and arc motifs in the triangular panel above the two upstairs windows. High on the right side wall is a small multi-pane stair window. There is a single-storey, shed-roofed extension across the back, which was completely rebuilt. A charming geometric motif picket fence now encloses the small front garden.

The house had latterly fallen into disrepair, but was restored in the 1990s. When the present owners took possession, they filled 56 bags of trash and garbage plus three truck loads of miscellaneous trash!  In addition to clean up, the house required extensive structural work.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

The corner of Vancouver and Fairfield was an area of working class homes and businesses bordering on upper scale houses. As there were a number of houses built in this vicinity, it is difficult to determine who actually built the house. Young & Bartlett paid taxes in 1892, followed by Daniel Romain Young in 1893 when the assessments jumped in value from $900 to $1500. Robert Young began paying taxes on this property in 1894, and his name is on the 1906 plumbing permit. This house does not appear in city directories until 1894 when it was vacant.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

Numerous tenants occupied this house for about the first 20 years. The first known residents were Jane (McKenzie, c.1859-1914) and Charles R. McDougall, a miner, who lived here with their eight children 1901-02. Benjamin O. Taylor, a stableman, lived here in 1903. The house was then vacant c.1904-07. John Henderson, a waiter at the Driard Hotel, lived here 1908-09, followed by Alfred Gibson in 1910-11. In 1912, George A. Foden, a foreman, lived here.

Following another period of vacancy, the Frith family bought the house by 1917 and lived here until the 1970s. Fenwick William Frith (1864-1946) was a hotel keeper born in St. John, NB. In 1899 he married Jane McAllister (1874-1952), a native of Glasgow, Scotland, who came to Canada in the 1880s. They had two daughters, Mary Jane (1903-1956) and Georgina Alice (1900-1977), both born in Cranbrook. The Frith family moved to Victoria in 1907. Mary Jane and Georgina remained at home with their parents, and continued to live here after they died. Georgina was a school teacher who was awarded the Bene Merenti Medal by Pope John XXIII for her years of dedicated teaching.

Owners Melinda Seyler, Mikal Williams and Laurie Edmundson won a 2002 Hallmark Society Award for their restoration of this property.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• Statement of Significance (Canadian Register of Historic Places)

• GIS Map of Victoria's Heritage Register Properties

• Fairfield History

• Fairfield Heritage Register



• This Old House, Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume Four: Fairfield, Gonzales & Jubilee