ARCHITECTURE:
The original owner and builder of this house was Albert Pike, a bricklayer living at 554 Niagara St. The front-gabled, gable-on-hip roof has a recessed door in the gable leading to an inset balcony in the hip; there is a porch on the hip on the rear. The hipped roof is bellcast and forms the cover of the front porch and the wide angled bay to the left of the porch. A tight denticulated frieze surrounds the front and sides of the house. The porch, which has eliptical arches between chamfered posts, is enclosed with large old, well-proportioned windows. Both the front and rear gables have finials. The house is shingled above the watertable, which sits on a high brick foundation, and it has two corbelled brick chimneys.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1906-10: Norah (Denny, 1876-1961) and Francis Pengelley (1877-1968) lived here until 1910, then moved their new house at 427 Arnold Av. Frank was born in Ontario and came to Victoria in 1898. Norah was born in Victoria and married Frank in 1907. Frank was a salesman with Weiler Bros all his adult life until he retired in 1960.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1924-1931: Carpenter Frederick Armour Irvine (b. Victoria 1885-1932) and Carrie Louise (née Milligan, b. Cleveland, OH, USA1886-1935) married in Vernon, BC in 1906. (Fred was the son of William Irvine and Florence (née Carlow), and grandson of Saanich pioneers John and Jessie Irvine. They came to Victoria in 1851 on the “Tory” as HBC indentured servants, lived at Fort Victoria and Craigflower Farm before clearing a farm, “Rose Bank Farm” out of the forest in the Cedar Hill area of Saanich.)
1932: William H. Browne, BC government grazing assistant.
1933-40:Albert “Bert” Ernest Matcham (b. Aldershot, ENG 1899-1976) and Margaret Janette (née White, b. Waterloo, IA1903-1957), who came to Canada in 1906. She lived in Regina, SK, for many years, married Bert in 1926, and they came here in 1929. She was a long-time member of Fairfield United Church. Albert was a bookkeeper with MacDonald Electric and later became an accountant. He was a member of Oak Bay Camera Club, Gordon Head Garden Club, and Victoria Credit Granters Assn.
1941-42: Federal chief clerk John Street Pells (b. Hampstead, London, ENG 1891-1967) and Constance Dorothy (née Leith, b. London, ENG 1895-1992).
1943-44: VMD helper Adolf Nelson and wife Lily.
1945-55: Civil engineer and surveyor George Francis Thomas (b. Moncton, NB 1889-1974) and Charlotte Ethel (née Whall, b. Russell, MB 1907-1998) married in St. Boniface, MB in 1929.
1955-74: George Puritch (b. Wroxton, SK 1907-1987) and Isabella “Isa” Blelloch (née Lamond, b. Perth, SCT 1909-1989). George’s family immigrated from Austria and homesteaded at Wroxton, SK. He was in the army in WWII, stationed in Britain as a heavy-duty mechanic. Isa, a war bride, sailed in 1946 with their young son and daughter on the Queen Mary to Halifax, then came by train to Victoria. George had come to Victoria nine months earlier and was a mechanic with Wilson then Morrison Motors until his retirement. The Puritches refused to sell to developers many times in the 1960s and ‘70s.