ARCHITECTURE:
This 1½-storey Edwardian house has the main gable facing Topaz Av and the main entrance on the right side on The Rise, formerly Jones St. The Topaz gable has three windows in a very shallow box bay and projects over a full-width balcony which has an angled bay on the R and a pair of French doors on the left. The balcony has square balusters and battered corner posts and pilasters on tall piers; a centrally-located, bracketed “Juliet” balcony hangs off the balustrade. There is a full-width gable on the left side of the house.
The Rise façade has a pair of later-addition gabled dormers separated by a shed roof. The offset gabled porch extension has flattened arches and two battered wooden posts on granite piers with concrete caps; the balustrades are also of granite and concrete. To the right of the front door is a small vertical window, and to the left, on either side of the exterior wall chimney, are two small, horizontal windows, all three with leaded art glass. Both brick chimneys are corbelled. The house has been stuccoed. The original granite garden wall is extant.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1920-32: The 1920 Building Permit and City Assessment Rolls 1920-21 record James McHattie making $3,000-worth of improvements to the property. Although the style of the house is pre-WWI, the pre-WWI City Directories do not show houses on this block of Topaz or The Rise. 1290 Topaz first appears in the 1924 Directory, occupied by James McHattie, foreman of Pacific Construction Co on Admirals Rd, and later foreman for Baker Brick & Tile Co at Douglas and Tolmie. As McHattie was in construction, he conceivably kept plans from the 1910s until after the war. James Touch McHattie (b. SCT 1887-1952) and Bella Fraser (née Sheret, bSCT 1887-1973) arrived in Canada in 1906 and 1913 respectively, and married here in 1914. Bella was working as a saleswoman when they married.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1933-34: Victoria City policeman Henry and Jane Jones. 1935: Music teacher Alma Beryle (née Hayton) and Cecil Merrit Bradley, manager for Prudential Life Assurance, who married in Vancouver in 1933. 1936: Dr. William J. Endicott, wife Viola M., and daughter Mary, who was a school teacher.
1937: Inga (née Steffanson) and HBC credit manager Leo Eugene Evenden.
1939: Blanche (née Sampson) and Harry Skellett Bentham, a meatcutter at Cross’s Stores Ltd and later a butcher at James Bay Meat Market.
1940-44: John Trevelyan Gawthrop (b. London, ENG 1894-1955) and Marie Josephine (née Costigan, b. Calgary, AB 1893-1965). John was a Relief Investigator for the BC Government, then business manager for Colquitz Mental Home until his death.
1945: Ann and John Joseph Jamison, who worked at VMD during WWII.
1946-2010: Sydney Robert Lewis Ernest Alfred Tribe Knott (b. Calgary, AB 1908-1982) and Muriel Clarice (née Rogers, b. Sudbury, ON 1914-2010) married here in 1930. They had four children: Lewis, Clarice, Sylvia and Helene. Sydney operated and worked in several gas stations including Knott & Elford Service Gas & Oil at 2664 Douglas, later the Humber Green BA station. He retired by 1968. Muriel lived in the house until shortly before her death.