Heritage Register
Gonzales

550 Foul Bay Road
Ellora

Built 1908; 1909; 1955
Heritage-Designated 1994

For: C. Frank Hawkins; Sarah & Guy Audain; Christian Science Church

Architects: Samuel Maclure; Wade, Stockdill & Armour
Contractor: George Calder
Contractor for the 1st addition: Thomas Catterall

ARCHITECTURE:

With Ellora Samuel Maclure returned to his more conventional “Maclure Chalet” style with one of his most powerful statements in this idiom. Built three years after the completion of the atypical 911-13-17 Burdett St (Fairfield) with its front jerkinhead gable and small gabled entry porch, Ellora shows many similarities in form to 1598 Rockland Av (Rockland), built four years earlier, with the principal difference of a central recessed entry rather than on the corner. The façade is dominated by the entirely half-timbered gable end projecting over the shingled ground floor, supported by two brackets flanking the front door and two massive granite corner piers. There are two pairs of brackets on the wide bargeboard and a finial in the gable. There are ribbons of casements at the attic and second-storey levels, and an angled bay window on each side of the entrance.

There are two gabled side dormers. The smaller, a wall dormer on the left (south) side, crowns a tall second-storey four-part ribbon window flanked by two shorter ones, above a double door flanked by two-part windows leading onto a granite porch. There are three granite chimneys on the open-eaved roof with raftertails. A pencil annotation on the original plans states “cost $7,760.” In 1923, Country Life featured this house as a well-designed West Coast residence.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

While Hawkins’ name appears on the plans, no information on him has been found, and he appears to have immediately sold the house to the Audains.

Major Guy Mortimer Audain was born in Belfast in 1864. After education in Ireland and Switzerland, he attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He went to India with the Suffolk Regiment in 1890 and was later transferred to the Hyderabad Contingent, of which he became commander. In 1901 he stopped in Victoria while on leave, where he met and promptly married Sarah Byrd “Byrdie” Dunsmuir, daughter of Victoria’s foremost industrialist and politician, James Dunsmuir. Living in India did not suit Byrdie, so Audain retired from the military and they settled in Victoria, first at her parents’ house Burleith on the Gorge, then at this house, which they called Ellora, after famous caves in India. Audain was aide-de-camp to his father-in-law during Dunsmuir’s term as Lieutenant-Governor. The Audains lived here until 1921 or 22.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

Barrister John R. Greene lived here 1925-26. Lumberman John Arbuthnot (1861-1931) was here by 1928. Born in St. Catharines, ON, John completed his education and farmed for some time before entering the railroad contracting business. He moved to Winnipeg in 1890, and joined the Western Lumber Co. He served as alderman and mayor of Winnipeg. He came to BC in 1907 and started Pacific Coal Mines with his brother-in-law, James M. Savage. His first wife, Agnes Barbara (c.1868-1916) was born in Quebec, but moved to St. Catharines, where she later married John. They were living at Robleda at 1337 Rockland Av (Rockland) when she died in 1916, and then it burned down in 1927. At some point John married Lillian (1888-1971), daughter of contractor John Haggerty (1140 Fort St, Fernwood and 1385 Manor Rd, Rockland).

John and Blanche Moxam lived here 1932-35 (1015 Moss St, Rockland). Capt Charles Morton Calderwood Fleming (1894-1942) resided here from 1939-42, after serving 21 years on the cableship Restorer. A native of Glasgow, Scotland, Charles came to Canada in the late 1920s and served with the Royal Navy during WWII. His widow, Phyllis May Slocombe (1905-1965) moved to Vancouver in 1961.

Dr. George William Clement (1894-1958) and Alice Bertha (Dawley) Bissett owned this property from 1942-53. Born in Sidney, BC, George served in Europe with the Army Medical Corps. He returned to McGill University and graduated in 1917, and then served with the British army medical corps in France and India. Bissett returned to BC and practised medicine in Nanaimo from 1920-26, Trail, 1927-29, and Duncan, 1930-41. During WWII he again served overseas with the Army Medical Corps. Upon his return to Canada he established a practice in Victoria, and became a surgical consultant at the Veterans’ Hospital when it opened in 1947. He became assistant superintendent there in 1954.

In 1955 the Christian Science Church purchased the property and turned the house into a nursing home.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• Gonzales History

• Gonzales Heritage Register


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