ARCHITECTURE:
This complex Queen Anne house is almost an exact match for 203 Raynor Av (Vic West), built three years earlier. With two main storeys, it has a large gabled 2-storey bay on the left front and two hipped 2-storey bays on the sides; the top roof is gable-on-hip. The front angled bay has cutaway windows and a bracketed, inset window in the gable. The left bay is square on the second floor and cutaway on the first; the right one is angled with an angled hipped roof. As well, there is a 1½-storey gabled wing at the rear with a 1-storey section behind that.
The ground floor is clad in drop siding, the second, shingled. There is a shed-roofed, wraparound entry porch with a small pedimented gable above the door, and turned posts with brackets, large spindles, and round and flattened arches. There is lattice decoration in the porch arches and the front gable; the lattice in the roof gable has been replaced with a diamond shingle pattern. Two tall, corbelled chimneys tower above the roof, with a short one against an outer wall at the rear.
A.C. Ewart drew and signed the plumbing plan in 1897, so was likely the architect.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
Born in Denmark, Anton Henderson (1853-1950) came to Canada in 1880 and settled in Victoria. In 1882 he married Ellen Orr (1862-1943) who was born in Lytton, BC. By 1898 Anton was actively involved in the Klondike Gold Rush, operating a warehouse in Skagway and later in Nome. In Victoria, he became General Manager of Frank Barnard’s Victoria Transfer Co (1462 Rockland Av), and was vice-president of the newly-formed Victoria Tourist Association. Anton was a Victoria alderman in 1893 and 1907-09. The Hendersons lived here until 1911 then they retired to their farm on Carey Rd near MacKenzie Av. Son Henry James Henderson, a dentist, lived here in 1912.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
For the next several years, various tenants occupied the house, including Samuel Boond, a government clerk, who lived here in 1914, followed by Margaret Evans in 1917.
Retired couple John William (1866-1946) and Annie (Mulhall, 1868-1943) Bond bought the house in the early 1920s and lived here until their deaths. John was born in England, and Annie in Sydney, Australia. They came to Victoria in 1914. John was worked in the building industry before he retired.
Shipwright Arthur Green and his wife Gertrude bought this house by 1949 and lived here briefly. Timothy and Jane Heiberg were here in the early 1950s. Timothy worked at Yarrows.
In 1986 owners Clifford Whitehead and Marjorie Parsons won a Hallmark Society Award for their restoration of this house.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:
• Statement of Significance (Canadian Register of Historic Places)
• GIS Map of Victoria’s Heritage Register Properties
• This Old House, Victoria’s Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume Four: Fairfield, Gonzales & Jubilee
Recent Comments