Heritage Register
North Park

1527 Amelia Street (ex-9 Amelia St)

Built c.1888
Heritage-Registered

For: Samuel & Mary Styles

Builder: Samuel Thomas Styles



ARCHITECTURE:

It is somewhat difficult to visualize the original Homestead style of this 1½-storey wood-frame house, behind its modern restaurant makeover. However, the most ornamental detail – the small window with semi-circular top– is original, as is the highly corbelled chimney on the shallow, front-gabled roof. A modern raised deck replaces the original front garden and distracts the eye from the remains of the full-width front porch; stucco on one sidewall suggests the entire house was once stuccoed.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

Henry Thomas, a clerk at Bornstein’s (hides and skins) lived here in the late 1880s. He was born in Cornwall, England and died in 1895 at 38. Eugene and Clara Belle (Hague) Condron lived here in the early 1890s (132 South Turner St, James Bay). Eugene, born in Queenstown, Ireland, died in 1897 at 29. Clara, a native of Missouri, married John Minto in 1901 at 29.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

From 1901-03 carpenter John J. Gillis lived here.

The Luscombe family moved in by 1909 and lived here until the early 1940s. Thomas Luscombe (1840-1918) was born in Yatton, England came to Canada c.1860, and lived in Montreal and Toronto for over 20 years before coming to Victoria. He met and married Charlotte Grace Leslie Turner (1848-1937) while living in Montreal. Thomas was a veteran of the Fenian Raid. He was an agent for Golden Gate compressed yeast, and later became a tailor. Unmarried daughter Anne Curtiss (1872-1955), born in Montreal, lived at this house for several years after the death of her parents, until at least 1943.

By 1946, Stanley Porter, a meat cutter at Willows Meat, and his wife Jane were the owners. Violet Godfrey, a waitress at the Douglas Hotel Restaurant was the listed resident in 1951.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• Map of Victoria Heritage Register Properties

• North Park History

• North Park Heritage Register


• This Old House, Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume Three: Rockland, Burnside, Harris Green,
Hillside-Quadra, North Park & Oaklands