Heritage Register
Fernwood

1110 Pembroke Street (ex-1109 Pembroke St)

Built 1908-09
Heritage-Registered

For: Francis & Rachel Stephenson

Architect: Robert McKinney & Co.
Builder: Francis H. Stephenson

ARCHITECTURE:

This is a 1½-storey, cross-and-front-gabled Edwardian Vernacular Arts & Crafts house. All the bargeboards end in a triangle on which is applied a smaller triangle. There were originally two identical roof dormers. The right dormer has been extended over a recently constructed bowed bay. The left side has a cantilevered angled bay below the main roofline. There is a large sleeping porch in the front gable with square posts and sawn balusters. A wide dentilated beltcourse separates the gable from the distinctive full-width inset front verandah below. It has an angled bay on the left, an offset front door and a band of three stained glass windows on the right. The verandah has paired and tripled square posts on a balustrade clad in bevelled siding. The centrally located stairway has sloped, shingled balustrades. The upper portions of the gables which are shingled, are separated from the lower by dentilated stringcourses. The lower gables and the body of the house are covered in bevelled siding, the basement is shingled. The house may have been duplexed c.1947. The house was rehabilitated in 2011-12 by Garde Collins and Malcolm Harman, who removed the later stucco and reopened the sleeping porch and verandah.

The Edwardian Vernacular Arts & Crafts house was the height of fashion in Victoria when Frank Stephenson and Robert McKinney built a cluster of houses in Fernwood and North Park in 1908-10. After building this house for $2,950 in 1908-09, they built 2009, 2011 and 2015 Cook St, 1164 and 1170 Pembroke, then 1105 Princess Av in 1910. In 1912 Stephenson added the George Jay grocery store at the corner, 2005 Cook St.

Robert McKinney, who advertised his firm as “architects, builders and builders’ supplies,” is listed as architect for similar buildings nearby. McKinney arrived in Victoria just in time for the City’s building boom. He was born in Ontario, then lived in Winnipeg. One Robert McKinney & Co ad claims to having 30 years experience and designing over 1,000 residences. There are over 30 known houses designed by McKinney in Victoria. After 1910 McKinney owned and managed several millwork and building supply companies including Woodworkers Ltd, Lake-McKinney Co and McKinney-Haggerty Co. By 1912 he, his wife Harriet and family were living in a house he designed at 2531 Government St. In 1915 he was the proprietor of the Fairfield Grocery on Foul Bay Rd. His eldest son Alexander Thomas signed up in 1916 for service in the 103rd Battlion, CEF. The McKinneys left Victoria in 1916.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

1908-18: Builder and owner Francis Hardy Stephenson (b. Ontario, 1855-1945) was also a horse breeder and dealer. In 1909 he built a stable at 1105 Princess, directly behind 1110 Pembroke. He and his wife Rachel Mary (née Sproul, b. Orangeville, ON, 1872-1951) lived in Saskatchewan from at least 1887-1902, and their three children were born there. Francis was later a fur farmer, raising foxes until retiring in 1942. He died in Merville, Rachel in Powell River, BC.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

1918-33: Percival Augustus “Percy” Hawkes (b. Bournemouth, Hants, ENG, 1879-1939) and Edith Marion (née Rippon, b. Gateshead, Co Durham, ENG, 1880-1948). Percy served in the Boer War, earning the Victoria medal and four service bars, then came to Montreal in 1906. Edith, a nurse and family friend, married him there in 1908. They moved to Victoria because it most closely resembled Bournemouth with its chalk cliffs and mild maritime climate. They lived at 1217 Yukon St, Fernwood, in 1909, then 2009 Cameron St then moved around the corner to 1114 Pembroke, and finally 1110. Percy was born into a boot and shoemaking family. The business was established by his grandfather in the 1840s. Percy spent his working life in Victoria as shoe department manager at David Spencer Ltd. His job included an annual month-long buying trip to Boston and other eastern cities. In 1934 the Hawkes family moved to Fairfield.

Their sons John Charles “Jack” and Robert Percival “Bob” worked at Jameson Motors when they finished high school in the mid-1920s. In July 1929 they opened Hawkes Bros (Esso) Service Garage in the 1922 Spanish Revival Imperial Oil station at 404 Moss St. Jack married Jean Bagley in 1933; Bob married Edna Fairhurst in 1937. In the 1940s-50s the brothers had the Buick, Pontiac and Vauxhall dealership, and sold used cars. Jack served as president of BC Automotive Retailers Association. They sold the business in 1968.

1935-42: Robert Alexander Campbell Dewar (b. Paisley, ON, 1879-1958) and Martha Mary (née Grimmer, b. New Westminster, BC, 1883-1978) married in Victoria in 1904. He was a BCER “motorneer” (operator) for 47 years until retiring in 1945. Robert was for many years a City of Victoria Alderman and Chairman of the Lands Committee.

1943-45: John Henry and May Gorton were born in Lancs, ENG. They married in 1923 in Nanaimo, where John was a coal miner. He worked for VMD during WWII. They later moved back to Nanaimo and John worked as a City of Nanaimo labourer.
1947-48: Federal customs inspector Bernard Thomas and Christine Dane.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• Fernwood History

• Fernwood Heritage Register

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