Heritage Register
Rockland
1005 St. Charles St
Clairden; St. Charles Lodge
Built
1910-11; 1922
Heritage-Registered
For: Simon & Caroline Leiser; Elliott Galt
Architect: Samuel Maclure (1910-11; 1922)
Contactors: James Murray & Robert McKinney (1910-11);
John Ernest Shenk (1922)
ARCHITECTURE:
Clairden is an asymmetrical 2½-storey, Tudor Revival
Arts & Crafts house. It is bellcast-hip-roofed and has
three flat-roofed and one hip-roofed dormers. There is
a two-storey wing on the right side with a one-storey,
hip-roofed bay on the main floor to which a flat-roofed
entry is attached. The left rear has a long extension and
several one-storey box bays. The left side of the house has
a full-height box bay towards the front. The front façade
has a full-height, shallow, hip-roofed box bay to the right
of the recessed main entry porch. There is a hip-roofed
canopy over the exterior portion of the porch, which has
front-facing stairs offset to the left. To the left of that is a
deeply hip-roofed box bay. A high belt course separates
the stucco and half-timbered upper level from the shingled
main floor. The shingles extend to the low water table
over the concrete foundation. The concrete-capped stone
terrace in front of the house, which bordered a garden,
now borders a driveway. It was built for $18,000 and the
1922 alterations were for $900.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1911-18: Simon Leiser (1851-1917) was one of
Victoria’s
pioneer
merchants.
In 1868 he
came from
Germany to
Wisconsin,
where
his uncle
Jacob Lenz
was an
established
wholesale liquor dealer. By 1872 Simon was managing two
stores and the Chicago office of his uncle’s business. He met
Jacob’s daughter Caroline (1856-1935); they came to BC
in 1873 and married six years later. After a brief stint in the
coffee business in Victoria, Simon headed for the Cassiar
District, where he won a contract to build a 100 km trail
from Telegraph Creek to Dease Lake. He opened his first
grocery store during this period with Jacob Lenz, and during
the 1870s operated up to four stores in the Cassiar District,
where he catered to the many miners in the region. Simon
came to Victoria in 1880 and established a grocery business
on Johnson St. The success of this business prompted him to
enter the wholesale business as Simon Leiser & Co in 1894.
In 1896 he moved his business
to 522-524 Yates St, Downtown,
the block that bears his name.
It was the largest wholesale
grocery business in BC during
the 1890s, employing about 100
people on Vancouver Island
alone, although his business
extended east into the Kootenays
and north to Alaska. The 1890s
were particularly prosperous
during the Klondike Gold
Rush when Simon supplied the
many miners in the region. He
expanded into the sealing trade,
eventually becoming director of
Victoria Sealing Co. The seizing
of his vessels the Wanderer and the Favorite by the US Government in 1894 precipitated international negotiations
that led to the end of open-ocean seal hunting.
An active member of the Board of Trade, Simon became
president in 1909. During his two terms, he promoted the
building of Victoria, particularly the Inner Harbour. Simon’s
other interests included the Royal Jubilee Hospital, Victoria
Opera House and Royal Theatre. But in May 1915, the night
after Germany sank the Lusitania on which 13 Victorians
died (including 21-year-old Jim “Boy” Dunsmuir, scion
of the Dunsmuir family), angry crowds rioted downtown,
ransacking buildings and businesses owned by German-born
citizens. Two of Simon’s buildings on Yates St were badly
damaged and the stock looted.
Simon died at his daughter’s residence in Vancouver.
His son Herbert Leiser lived in this house in 1918 with
his mother Caroline. In her youth Caroline was a noted
pianist. She was engaged in various philanthropic
activities, including the Aged Women’s Home, the
Women’s Auxiliary of the Jubilee Hospital, the Sisters of
St. Ann and various Jewish organizations.
.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1919-22: George Gordon Bushby (b. Victoria 1869-
1932) and Violet Carlotta (née Brae, b. Sheffield, ENG
1876-1955) married in Calgary in 1908. Violet came to
Canada in 1892. George was the grandson of Sir James
Douglas and the son of Arthur Thomas Bushby, an
accomplished musician and key political figure in BC’s
early history. George studied engineering in England and
San Francisco and began his career with his sister, Annie
Bushby Bullen, her husband William Fitzherbert Bullen
and his brother Harry Frederick Bullen (1007 Joan Cr,
Rockland, 906 & 908 St. Charles St) as a partner in the
BC Marine Railway Co. George established a branch
of the firm in Vancouver in 1898, and stayed there until
he sold his interests in 1919. The Bushbys bought this
house for $50,000 and lived in Victoria for several years,
then moved to Prince Rupert in 1921. George established
Rupert Marine Products, a fishery production plant, and
operated the facility for 10 years until ill health forced him
to retire.
1922-28: Elliott Torrance Galt (b, Sherbrooke, QC
1850-1928) was one of 13 children of Sir Alexander
Tilloch and Amy Gordon Galt, and the brother of John
Galt (1320 Rockland Av) who retired to Victoria in 1920.
Alexander, Canada’s finance minister in 1868, was a
Montreal businessman. In 1879–80 Elliott travelled the prairies as assistant to Edgar Dewdney (1759 Rockland
Av), Indian Commissioner for Manitoba and the
Northwest Territories. With his father, Elliot opened the
first large coal mines in southern Alberta, and established
the town of Lethbridge. Elliott was responsible for turning
a large portion of Alberta’s native praire into productive
agricultural land. In 1903 he became president of Alberta
Railway & Irrigation Co, which combined the family’s
mining, irrigation and railway interests. In 1912 the CPR
bought them out. Elliott later made his home in New York,
where he died in 1928. Lethbridge has honoured him by
naming their museum the Galt Museum and Archives.
1922-59: Selina Galt (1863-1959) and Muriel Galt
came to live with their unmarried brother Elliott, and
inherited the house when he died. Selina lived here until her
death. Clairden was converted to the 10-suite St. Charles
Lodge apartments for $8,500 in 1959-60 by J. Frenchetti.
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
