Heritage Register
Rockland
908 St. Charles Street
Glenlyon; Jasper
Built
1914; 1953
Heritage-Registered
For: John Ross; Claude Belcher
Architects: Leonard Bernhardt Beale (1914)
Eleanor Yager (1953)
Contractors: Richard H. Harrison & John Adey Dresser (1914)
ARCHITECTURE:
Glenlyon is a 2½-storey, hip-roofed, Tudor Revival
Arts & Crafts house. There are three flat-roofed dormers
with small modillions, the front and side dormers have three
leaded glass windows. The upper floor is
half-timbered, accented under the windows
with arched detail; this detail is modified
on the porte-cochère balustrade. The main
floor and porte-cochère piers are of rustic
granite. The front entrance porch is recessed
under the porte-cochère. The street façade
has a wide projection on the right, separated
from the main wall by an angled entry bay;
the projection has a central one-storey,
flat-roofed box bay. The left side of the
house has a similar box bay. Windows are
all multi-lights-over-one, often in groups of
three. Prominent granite chimneys have flat, over-hanging
concrete caps. The low front wall and heavily-capped gate
posts are of granite; the wall retains its decorative swag
wrought iron fence. Glenlyon was built for $20,000; in
1953 it was converted into suites by Eleanor Yager, one
of Victoria’s first female architects, for Grace and Claude
Belcher.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1914-15: John Ross owned it for only one year.
1916-17: Widow Laura Martin Fraser (née English, then
Clinton, b. San Francisco 1873-1958) came to Canada
with her family in 1874. She was a widow when she
married James Sutherland Chisholm Fraser in New
Westminster in 1903. He became manager of the Victoria
branch of the Bank of Montreal in 1912 and they lived
at 1715 Rockland Av. He died of ptomaine poisoning
in Toronto in 1914.
.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1918: Canadian Bank of Commerce
manager William Hamer Hargrave b. Quebec c.1867) and
Lily Blanche (née Sicotte, b. St. Hyacinthe, QC 1857-
1928). They lived in 1007 Joan Cr in 1920-21.
1920:
Harry and Margaret Bullen moved here from 1007 Joan
Cr, Rockland, while their home 906 St. Charles St was
being built next door.
1923-47: Lorne Argyle Campbell (1871-1947) and
Mary Spahr (née Hosier, b. Jamestown, OH 1881-1941)
Mary came to Canada in 1902 and married Lorne in 1903.
Lorne was born in Perth, ON, where he took a degree in
electrical engineering. In 1889 he joined Edison General
Electric Co in Toronto, and became chief engineer of
its successor, Canadian General Electric, in 1891 at 22
years of age. He moved to BC in 1898 and settled in
Rossland as general manager, then vice-president of West
Kootenay Power & Light. In 1912 he was elected MLA for Rossland-Trail, and from 1916-20 he was Minister of
Mines for BC. The Campbells moved to Victoria in 1923.
By the 1940s Lorne was president of West Kootenay
Power & Light and the McGillivray Creek Coal & Coke
Co, and a director of Consolidated Mining & Smelting Co.
Although Lorne lived in Victoria for about 20 years, he
was more closely associated with Rossland; he returned
there in 1946 and died the following year. The house and
contents were sold by auction in September 1947.
1948-51: William T. Henry, proprietor of Tweedsmuir
Mansions, 900 Park Blvd, Fairfield.
1953-58: Grace Jean
(née MacDonald) and Claude Alfred Belcher (b. Kelliher,
SK 1908-1957). Claude came to Victoria in 1924. He and
Grace married in 1931 in his home at 1555 Pembroke St,
Fernwood. At the time Claude was a police officer and
Grace a registered nurse. By the 1950s, Claude was a real
estate salesman with Rithet Consolidated Ltd. Grace was
living at 1400 Newport Av in Oak Bay by 1963.
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
