Heritage Register
Fernwood

1811 Belmont Avenue

Built 1912
Heritage-Registered

For: Henry & Jane Harkness

Architect: Lord Wilfred Hargreaves
Builder: Henry Harkness

ARCHITECTURE:

This symmetrical 1½-storey front-gabled Arts & Crafts Bungalow has two cross-gabled dormers over cantilevered square bays. Arts & Crafts-cum-Craftsman elements are exposed raftertails, jettied gable peaks, knee brackets at the gable ends, and granite piers supporting the verandah columns. The front gable has an unusual curved balcony sitting in the hipped roof of the full-width verandah. Classical Revival features include slender paired and tripled fluted columns on the verandah and modillions in the front gable. The front steps which originally had an elegant curved balustrade now have straight metal handrails. The body of the house is sheathed in double-bevelled siding and the foundation is shingled. The house was duplexed in 1937, and in 1959 converted to one suite and two light housekeeping rooms.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
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1912: This house was designed by L.W. Hargreaves and built by Harkness (1803 Belmont Av) in 1912. Hargreaves also designed a store and apartment building at 919 Pandora Av for Harkness in 1912.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

1913-20: William Wasbrough “Billy” Foster (b. Bristol, ENG, 1876-1954) and Olive (née Stewart, b. Winnipeg 1886-1981) married in Kamloops district in 1904. Billy was educated at Wycliffe College, became an engineer, and came to Canada in 1892 to work for the CPR in Revelstoke. In 1910 he became BC Deputy Minister of Public Works and worked hard at developing BC’s highway system. He was elected as an MLA for [Saanich &] the Islands in 1913, but then in November 1914 Capt. Foster signed up with the 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles for WWI, leaving Victoria in June 1915. In 1917 he was made Lt.-Col. and given command of the 52nd Winnipeg Battalion; by 1918 he was a Brig.-Gen. He was wounded five times and severely gassed. He received the DSO with two bars, CMG, VD, and both the French and Belgian Croix de Guerre.

Back in BC, Billy became managing director of Evans, Coleman & Evans, a timber exporting company operating on Vancouver’s waterfront. In 1935 he was appointed Chief Constable of Vancouver City Police. He was president of the Alpine Club of Canada from 1920-24, the Canadian National Parks Association, and the Royal Canadian Legion from 1938-40; he was also Honorary Aide-de-Camp to three Governor-Generals. Billy was called to serve again in WWII as chairman of the Canadian Officer’s Selection Board. He became a Maj.-Gen, from 1943 as Commissioner of Defense Projects in Canada’s NW. From 1945-54 he was the head of BC Hydro-Electric Power Commission, responsible for many new power projects for BC. However it was as a mountaineer that Billy gained international fame: with several others, he made the first ascents of Mt Robson, 1913, and Mt Logan, 1925, Canada’s two highest peaks. Mt. Colonel Foster in Vancouver Island’s Strathcona Park was named for him.

1920-21: Thomas Kilpatrick (b. Simcoe, ON, 1857-1939), and Elsie (née McKinnon, b. c.1873). Thomas was a civil engineer who came west with a CPR construction crew in 1885, and was later a provincial bridge inspector. He married Elsie in Revelstoke in 1903. He later became general manager of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway, and died in Vancouver.
1925-28: John and Mary Ann Littler. John lived in Winnipeg from 1904-20, where he married Mary Ann. They retired to Victoria.
1935: Mary Ann Littler lived here again after John’s death.
1936-37: Contractor Anson W.B. Jones (522 Trutch St, Fairfield) lived here and duplexed the house.
1937-38: Gertrude Eva Scott, widow of Henry John Scott. She resided from 1940-49 at 1008 Carberry Gardens, Rockland.

1941-43: Kathleen and Lloyd George Jones (b. PEI, 1911-1975), carpenter and lather, and the son of Anson Jones (see above).
1944: Patricia Emond. whose husband Roland was on active service; and Kathleen Knight, widow of R Knight.
1945-47: Joiner John Alexander and Alice Paterson Sutherland who were born in Scotland.

Tenants, then owners: 1938-2002: In 1937 Irene Gertrude Colbert (née Bremner, 1892-1956) and her five children, including BC government clerk James L and St. Joseph’s Hospital telephone operator Joan Ellen lived at 1349 Grant St, Fernwood. Irene had married Reginald Leo “Reg” Colbert (b. Victoria 1886-1964) in Victoria in 1915, but they separated in 1933. Reg grew up at 1339 Stanley St in Fernwood. Irene and Reg’s other son, John Colbert, completed two years at Victoria College then joined the army at 18 to serve in WWII. Afterwards, he used his veteran’s re-establishment credits to buy 1811 Belmont as security for his mother Irene in her old age. Irene was a typist for the federal government and lived here with her two younger daughters.

1948-65: When Joan Ellen Colbert came out of the RCAF after WWII, she rented the upstairs suite and bought furniture with her re-establishment credits. She was a telephone operator at the Veterans’ Hospital. After Irene’s death, because their father Reg was having a tough time, John arranged for him to buy the house by monthly payments, but Reg never lived in the house. Reg worked as a janitor at the St. James Hotel, then as a plumber at St. Joseph’s Hospital.

1965-2002: Joan bought the house from her father’s estate for $70,000, and remained sole owner until her death in 2002.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• Map of Victoria's Heritage Register Properties

• Fernwood History

• Fernwood Heritage Register


• This Old House, Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume One: Fernwood & Victoria West