Heritage Register
Rockland
1041 St. Charles Street
Illahie
Built
1907
Heritage-Designated 1980, including interiors
For: Charles & Louisa Todd
Architect: Samuel Maclure
Contactor: George Calder
ARCHITECTURE:
Illahie is a 2½-storey, steeply-hip-roofed
Tudor Revival house with 2½-storey
gabled bays. There is one bay on the
main St. Charles façade, two on the right
side garden façade, one on the rear, and a
double-gabled wing on the left side. The
house has flat-roofed, hipped and gabled
dormers. Also between the two bays is a
garden entrance porch with curved arches
and square posts supporting a balustraded
balcony; the posts sit on concrete-capped
stone balustrades. The main façade has
on
centrally-located concrete steps leading to a full-width
porch under a balcony, similar to the right side. All gables
and dormers have finials; three gables are bracketed and
jettied on corbels, the front with a jettied apex. The main
floor is clad in random granite, the upper floor and gables
are half-timbered and stuccoed. The left side is stuccoed
and half-timbered, with shingles on the rear. There are
four tall, ribbed and corbelled brick chimneys. The interior
entrance hall is one
of Maclure’s finest
spaces. Some of the
interior features are
Heritage-Designated.
New accommodation
at the rear is built on
the footprint of the
original coachhouse.
The house cost
$16,000 in 1907.
Illahie is a signature
work of Samuel
Maclure, as is 1770
Rockland Av.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1907-41: Charles
Fox Todd (1856-
1941) was the son
of Jacob Hunter
Todd (see Harris
Green History), one of BC’s early canning pioneers
and merchants. Born in Brampton, ON, Charles came to
Vancouver Island with his family in 1862. He was educated
at Upper Canada College in Toronto before entering the
family business. He became a full partner at 21, and when
his father became involved in politics, Charles ran the
business. His educational background and interest in world
events contributed to the success of J.H Todd & Sons in BC
and around the world, particularly Great Britain, which was
the main market for their Horseshoe Brand sockeye salmon.
The Todds’ first cannery was in Richmond on the
Fraser River. They purchased others and opened the Empire Cannery in Esquimalt in 1905. At Jacob’s death
in 1899, equal shares of the business were left to his three
sons, Charles, Jack and Bert. Charles continued in the
business, while Jack and Bert (721 Linden, Rockland),
Charles’s much younger brothers by Jacob’s second wife,
Rosanna (1525 Shasta Pl, Rockland, 423 Chadwick Pl,
Gonzales), left to pursue other interests.
In 1884 Charles married Louisa Norris (1860-1930)
who came with her family from Bowmanville, ON, in
1863, and for 20 years they lived at 218 Johnson St , several doors east of his father Jacob Hunter Todd.
It later became McCall Brothers Funeral Parlour (house
demolished 1960, see Harris Green History).
Louisa’s father Frederick Norris established a saddlery
and leather shop on Government St in 1874; the business
remained in the family until 1956. Norris St near UVic
was named for him. Charles and Louisa had two sons,
William Charles, who entered the family business (944
St. Charles), and Ernest Dain Todd. Ernest was a partner
in Gillespie Hart & Todd, real estate, with John Hebden
Gillespie,
who married
Charles’s
stepsister
May Todd,
and future BC
Premier John
Hart. Like his
father and
brother, Ernest
commissioned
Samuel Maclure
to design
his home,
Dainhurst, built in 1912 at 508 Island Rd in Oak Bay.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1942: Ann (née Wells, 1873-1965) and Herbert John
Galliford (1869-1955) came from England after WWI.
Herbert retired as a gardener in 1945, and they lived in
1036 St. Charles St in 1942-55. 1943: For $5,000, Andrew
Murdoch converted Illahie into the six-suite Villa St.
Charles Apartments.
.
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
