Heritage Register
Rockland

805 Linden Avenue

Built 1913
Heritage-Designated 1978

For: Arthur & Rosanna Kent

Architect: Charles Elwood Watkins

ARCHITECTURE:

This gracious two-storey, symmetrical, Edwardian Georgian Revival house has a bellcast hipped roof with flat-roofed dormers. The front façade is dominated by a pair of full-height angled bays behind a full-width hip-roofed verandah with a central gable. The verandah has heavy, square columns in groups of three on battered fieldstone piers, and low square balusters. The wide flared steps have low, stone balustrades with granite caps. The front door and its sidelights have stained, leaded glass. The decorative stucco and half-timbering is best viewed on the sides. The right side has leaded piano windows and a flat-roofed conservatory. The brick chimneys are corbelled. This eightroom house was built with day labour for $8,000.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

1913-55: Arthur Edward Kent (B. Bedforshire, ENG c.1871-1933) settled with his family in Eastern Canada during his teens. He came to Victoria c.1895 and married Rosanna Lucy Sophia Jeeves (b. London, ENG 1879-1959) in 1897. Rosanna came to Victoria from London, England, in 1881. Arthur was founder and proprietor of Pacific Transfer Co at 506 Fort St, Downtown, from 1896-1914 when he sold. By 1918 he was a Provincial tax collector, and remained so until his death. Arthur was an active member of No. 2 Lodge, IOOF. He died in the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Daughter Julia Valentine Kent married Robert Wallace Whidden (1889-1980) in 1918; they lived here until the mid-1920s and divorced in 1926. Rosanna lived in this house until 1955. She was an active member of the Lady Laurier Club, Navy League Chapter, IODE, and St. Joseph’s Hospital Auxiliary.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

1956-65: Charles W. and Elaine Conrad lived here from 1956-65. Charles was a mortgage inspector for Canada Permanent Mortgage Co. He was the manager by 1959, and transferred to Regina in 1965.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• Map of Victoria's Heritage Register Properties

• Rockland History

• Rockland Heritage Register


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