ARCHITECTURE:
This 1½-storey, Edwardian Colonial Bungalow has Arts & Crafts detailing. The bellcast hipped roof over a wide frieze has a large, bellcast, hip-roofed dormer with sleeping porch on its front façade. There are smaller, hip-roofed dormers on the sides, the left dormer above a cantilevered box bay. The recessed half-width front porch ends at an angled bay to the R. The water table around the house is at the same height as the porch rail. The house is clad in shingles, including the square posts and the balus-trade of the porch. Some art-glass remains. The house was built for $1,800.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1909-13: Carpenter Samuel Verge (b. Twillingate, NL, 1864-1949) built this house for wife Kate Jane “Katie” (née Brewster, b. Collingwood, ON, 1874-1963). They married in Victoria in 1892, and moved to Seattle in 1917.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1914-57: Alice Susan Eliza Brown (b. Melbourne, AUS 1887-1946) arrived in 1891 along with her sister Sarah Howe Austen (b. Melbourne 1886-1953). She operated a boarding house, generally for single women. In 1920 Sarah married John Charles Frederick Potter, stationary eng (b. Hamilton, ON 1884-1981) and they owned the property until 1957.
Boarders: 1915-48: Legislative Building janitor William Henry Bailey (b. Peterborough, ENG 1865-1948) came here in 1898. A veteran of the Egyptian War, he served with 5th Regt in the Boer War, retiring in 1904 with the rank of Sgt-Major. He owned a country home The Malahat where he often entertained friends.
1932-36: Diggon-Hibben stenographer Miss Ruth Alice Hanson (b. Swift Current, SK b. 1909-2008) married teacher Cecil Chatfield (b. Calgary 1909-1971) in 1936 and moved to Pandora Av.