ARCHITECTURE:
This house was built in the lean 1930s between the end of the Great Depression and the beginning of World War Two, when materials and commissions were in relatively short supply. It is a small residential project by one of Victoria’s best British-trained architects, Hubert Savage. A 1930’s Bungalow, it is based on an English Cottage vernacular. Side-gabled with a gabled projection at the right front, it has a recessed front entry near the middle of the façade. The recessed entrance porch is defined by an arched effect created by vestigial lintel and brackets. The front door has a multi-paned arched light, and the front gable has a louvered vent. The eaves are shallow or non-existent with mouldings instead of bargeboards and rafter tails. Sashes have been replaced in the original frames, but with muntin bars replicating the originals: three vertical panes above a large single pane. The side gables each have a full-size window. On the right side at the junction of the projection is a prominent exterior chimney of red brick textured with projecting ends of clinker brick. Behind this chimney, a shallow, single-storey bay is lit by a round window with leaded diamond-paned glazing. Exterior cladding is bevelled wood siding. A recessed back corner porch on the right has a single square post support with a simple bracket and is enclosed by a large multi-paned sash above a solid parapet. The back door is a replacement.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
Eric Heaton Garman (1898-1993) came with his family from Altringham, Cheshire, England, to Vancouver in 1912-13. Mary Lexia Graham (1904-1950) was born in Logan, Ontario, and came to Whonnock, BC, in the Lower Mainland when she was small. She graduated as a teacher from the Provincial Normal School in Vancouver in 1924-25, and worked in the Vancouver area. Eric worked for the BC Forest Service Research Branch. They married in 1935 in Whonnock and moved to Victoria soon afterwards. They lived first on Quadra, and commissioned a house design from Hubert Savage in 1939. Green Bros began construction in April and finished in October of 1939.
The Garmans’ sons were both born in Victoria, Graham in 1938 and Roger in 1944. Mary died in 1950 and Eric remarried five years later, to Jean Henry (1905-1996), who came to Victoria in the 1930s from Fredericton, NB, via Saskatoon, SK, where the family spent a number of years. Jean worked in the BC Government Education Dept, but left in 1955 to become a homemaker. Eric retired in 1963, and he and Jean remained in the house until their deaths. Graham, who never married, lived with his parents and inherited the house in 1996. He worked first with the Hudson’s Bay Co, then as a receiver/shipper with St. Joseph’s, later Victoria General, Hospital from 1966. He retired in 1990 to look after his parents, and continues to live in the house.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:
• This Old House, Victoria’s Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume Four: Fairfield, Gonzales & Jubilee
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