Heritage Register
Rockland
1393 Rockland Avenue
Built
1912
Heritage-Registered
For: James & France Reid
Architects: Percy Leonard James & Douglas James
Contractor: Andrew Henry Mitchell
ARCHITECTURE:
This British Arts & Crafts Tudor Revival house is
Georgian Revival in its symmetry. Its main roof is flared and
steeply hipped with a tiny, flared, hipped vent on the front.
The front façade has two large, two-storey, hip-roofed, box
bays on either side of a large, elaborate, angled balcony over
a deeply-recessed, centrally-located entry porch. The balcony
balustrade repeats the pattern of the half-timbered belt which
surrounds the house. The angled front porch is supported
on octagonal posts with wide, shallow, curved brackets and
solid shingled balustrades. The stair balustrades are also
shingled. The two-storey angled bay within the porch has
windows with leaded art glass on both floors. The rear or
garden façade also has two full-height, hip-roofed bays, but
its faceted central balcony has been filled in. The shingled
lower floor is separated by a belt course from the upper,
which is half-timbered with smooth stucco. The one-storey
projection on the right side is the only asymmetrical part of
the design. The windows are a mixture of leaded art glass and
leaded multi-lights-over-one. The property retains its granite
wall with large gate posts, wrought iron gates and railings.
There are three tall, ribbed brick chimneys with heavy square brick caps; the one on the left is a through-the-cornice wall
chimney. The house cost $13,600.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1912-20: James Telford Reid (b. Strathroy, ON 1869-
1953) and Frances (née Chambers, b. Walkerton, ON 1866-
1947) came to BC in 1907. James was an investment banker
with offices at Bastion and Langley.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1921-30: Clarence
Hoard (b. Kentucky 1878-1969) and Caroline Morrison
(née Kinsley, b. Indiana 1884-1980) came to Vancouver
Island in 1903 and Victoria in 1915. Clarence, a civil
engineer, built highways and railroads, and was president
and managing director of Bainbridge Lumber Co.
1931: Retiree John Dennis.
1933-35: The Hon. John
H. King, senator, and his wife Nellie.
1936-38: The Hon.
Gordon McGregor Sloan (b. Nanaimo 1898-1959) and his
wife Nancy Porter (née Nicol, b. Rosehearty, SCT 1890-
1973) met during WWI when Gordon was a flight instructor
in Britain. They married in 1918 and returned to BC.
Gordon was called to the bar in 1921 and practised law in
Vancouver until 1933, then was elected MLA for Vancouver
Centre. He became BC’s youngest attorney general at the
age of 35. In 1937 he became a judge in the BC Appeal
Court, and in 1944, Chief Justice of that court. Nancy was
made a life member of the Vancouver Women’s Liberal
Association in 1936 for her political work.
1939-45: The Hon. Kenneth Cattanach MacDonald
(1872-1945), BC’s Minister of Agriculture from 1933-45,
and his wife Celia (née Loughrin, 1875-1958). Kenneth
moved from Ontario in 1890 to Grand Forks, then Vernon,
BC, where he practised dentistry. He was the North
Okanagan MLA in 1916, 1920 and 1924. Defeated in 1927,
he won again in 1933.
1947-48: BCER Vice-President
William Crossley Mainwaring (b. Nanaimo 1894-1967) and
Gladys Margaret (née Latta, b. Birmingham, ENG 1898-
1979) married in Vancouver in 1920.
1949-60: Ernest William Arnott (b. North Bend, BC
1893-1979) and Geraldine Bonnycastle (née Wallace,
b. Calgary 1892-1976) married in 1920. Ernest Arnott
joined the CPR as an office boy in Vancouver, then
a stenographer for the BCE superintendent in New
Westminster. From 1948-58 he was VP of Vancouver
Island operations. Ernest was president of the Victoria
Chamber of Commerce and the Union Club of Victoria.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:
• Map of Victoria's Heritage Register Properties
• Rockland History
• Rockland Heritage Register
• Royal BC Museum Archives
• This Old House, Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume Three: Rockland, Burnside, Harris Green,
Hillside-Quadra,
North Park & Oaklands
