ARCHITECTURE:
Probably built to an architect-conceived, pattern-book design, this modest 1½-storey dwelling is a good example of the English Cottage style. While embracing modernity in its planning – more compact rooms, a shower as well as a bath, and no accommodation for a servant – the use of half-timbering and a form that evokes a rural European cottage vernacular reflects not just the owners’ choices, but also a wider, international reaction to a machine age that favoured an industrial aesthetic. The roof is a steeply-sloping hipped roof, with a gabled extension to the left with half-timbered detail and simple narrow moulded bargeboards, and large shed-roofed dormers front and back. It has a brick-arched open porch, a single-panelled wood front door, integral arched light, and period door hardware. The exterior finish is rough pebble-dash stucco with decorative tile features. Most windows are casements in groups of three and most have eight-paned leaded transoms in simple patterns. Plain squares under main windows indicate missing window box brackets. Typical of the 1930s, there is a garage under the house, entered off Balfour St. Also on the east end is a brick fireplace and chimney. Drystone walls define the corner lot. The curving garden path is flanked by privet hedge and there are original steps to the street at the corner of the lot.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
James Dalziel inherited his father Henry’s wooden box manufacturing company in 1932, and with wife Yvette, built this house a year later. The choice of this location and architectural style both suited the picturesque nature of the area in the 1930s – a little-developed, gentle slope overlooking the Gorge, a tree-lined waterway – and allowed the Dalziels to be close to, and yet apart from, the box plant at 2851 Bridge St.
Henry Dalziel came to Victoria from Scotland in 1883, and worked as a machinist. He married Frances Holness in 1890, and they had five children. Henry established Dalziel Box Co in the mid-1910s, and ran the business with his four sons. He died in 1932 when his truck collided with a streetcar on Hillside Av. He was 68. Frances predeceased him in 1928 at 56. (See 1128 Topaz Av, Hillside-Quadra).
Son James William married Yvette Dubois in 1921. James became manager and by the mid-1940s, president, of the family company. Yvette was born in Colwood, BC, to Joseph and Leontine Dubois who settled there in 1870. James was still living in this house at the time of Yvette’s death in 1969 at 70.