Heritage Register
Rockland

1509 Rockland Avenue
Dreemskerry

Built 1922
Heritage-Designated 2000

For: George W. Lemon for Pauline & William Miller

Architect: Charles Elwood Watkins

ARCHITECTURE:

This two-storey, side-gabled, Georgian Revival-style house is unusual in that it has six bays. The front façade is symmetrical but with a sunroom on the right side and a single-storey, end-gabled garage extension with two dormers on the left. The single-storey, flat-roofed sunroom has a balcony above with a diamond-patterned balustrade and finely-turned urn finials. Both ends have through-thecornice brick chimneys at the ridge, splitting fan-shaped windows in the gables. The front façade has a centrally- located, gabled, round-arched portico with denticulated cornice and Tuscan columns leading to a recessed and panelled entry. The rear has an offset entry under a secondfloor Palladian window. All windows are multi-lightsover- one. In 1997 five gabled dormers were added to the front, creating a 2½-storey house. The exterior is clad in bevelled siding. The property has a fine rustic granite wall with crenalated capping and wrought iron gates, to which the name Dreemskerry is attached.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

Dr. William Howard Miller (1890-1928) came to Victoria from Topsail, NF, with his family in 1893. He taught at Boy’s Central and North Ward Schools, then studied medicine at McGill University. During WWI he worked in military hospitals overseas. Howard was a consultant at Royal Jubilee Hospital. His wife, Pauline Lemon (1894-1988), was born in Kansas; they married in 1919 in Newberg, OR. Her father, George W. Lemon, founder and president of the First National Bank in Pratt, KS, from 1902-55, commissioned this house. After Howard’s death, Pauline lived in the house until c.1930, then moved to California. She came back to Victoria by the early 1960s and built a pink bungalow at 2985 Beach Dr, where she lived until her death.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

Clifford Edmund (1899-1935) and Ann Estelle "Stella" (Neville) Whitaker lived here in the early 1930s. Clifford was born in Alaska, and his family was identified with the early history of Maryland and Pennsylvania, and founders of the Whitaker Iron Co in 1832. He came to Victoria in 1915 and was president of Whitaker & Revercomb (1537 Gladstone Av, Fernwood), car and radio parts. He married Ann in Baltimore, MD, in 1919. Ann was educated there, graduated from Teacher’s Training College and taught for a year. During WWI she served in the Quartermaster’s Corps at Washington, DC. Clifford and Ann were separated at the time of his death in 1935.

By 1939 retirees Thomas McAllister (1880-1963) and Edith (Armes) Knox were the residents. They lived here until the early-1940s. Thomas was born in Fort Lapwai, ID, and was a Colonel in the US Army before retiring to Canada in 1934. He was a great hunter, and is rumoured to have hung venison in the front room fireplace.

Dr. William Athol McElmoyle (1904-1979) lived here with his wife Dorothy May (Finley) from at least 1946 through the mid-1960s. He was born in Minnedosa, MB, and was a physican and surgeon with offices at 1207 Douglas St.

Brian and Maureen Stoodley came to Canada in 1956, they bought the house in 1980 and opened it as Dreemskerry (Manx Gaellic for “ridge by the sea”) Bed & Breakfast in 1987. Brian is from Bournemouth, England, Maureen from Douglas, Isle of Man, where she went to school with Toni Onley. The Stoodleys married in 1951 and honeymooned near the village of Dreemskerry, Isle of Man.

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