ARCHITECTURE:
This Edwardian Vernacular Arts & Crafts demonstrates several Kendrick Sharp themes: a distinctive tapered architrave across the front-facing gable, with shingles above and half-timbering and stucco below, and massive, sinuous brackets. A recessed front porch emphasizes the shallow box bay with hipped roof over four casement windows with a transom containing a series of ogee pyramids surrounded with circles and shields. (These motifs can also be seen at 608 Trutch St, Fairfield. Interestingly, Sharp did not use them on his best surviving building, opposite, at 810 Linden Av, Fairfield, which is much closer to his own house on Fort St, now demolished.) The gable windows are 9-over-1, and the multi-pane style is continued in a charming gabled conservatory, on the right side. Wide roof dormers on each side are probably original, having horns on the sashes. The main floor is shingled. There’s one tall, corbelled chimney, and a rear extension with a shed roof. Sharp built this $3,000 house “on spec”.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1910-23: Realtor Charles Trevor Cross (1869-1923), and Jessie (née Duke, 1863-1948). Charles was born in Cheshire, England, to a shipbuilding family. He came to Canada in 1885, lived in Winnipeg briefly, then Helena, MT, and Palouse, WA, where he stayed for many years. He moved to Silverton, BC, in 1897, where he met his future Victoria business partner, Francis Joseph O’Reilly (1866-1941) (2616 Pleasant St, Burnside). In 1906 Charles came to Victoria and established Cross & Co, General Agents, Real Estate, Timber Lands & Mines, with O’Reilly. The company occupied the Belmont Block for many years after its construction in 1913. Charles held interests in real estate, and succeeded Beaumont Boggs (1140 Arthur Currie Ln, Vic West) in the presidency of the local Real Estate Exchange from 1914-20. He was long member of Victoria Board of Trade, and was a director, then head, when it became the Chamber of Commerce. He died when he fell down a flight of stairs in his home trying to extinguish a fire in the basement. Jessie sold this house soon after, and moved to Vancouver in 1929. Daughter Edith Grace (1893-1978) was a teacher who lived with her parents until 1928 when she married civil engineer Percy Halero Buchan (1886-1974).
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1925-28: William R. Johnson, retired.
1929-32: Canon Edward Penard Laycock (b. Lancashire, ENG 1879-1972), Archdeacon of Christ Church Cathedral. Edward trained as an architect, and was ordained a priest in BC in 1911. He helped supervise construction of Christ Church, and other BC churches, in the Columbia coast mission (where he was Archdeacon from 1921-33) and England. He returned to England in 1933 and retired in 1949.
Tenants: 1933-40: The Hon. Col. Francis George Hood (b. London, ENG 1880-1949) and Helen Kendell Mouncey (née Prior, b. Victoria 1878-1977). Francis, a Royal Engineer, served at Work Point Barracks from 1902- 06, when British Imperial troops were withdrawn from Canada. A son of the 4th Viscount Hood, in 1904 he married Helen, the daughter of Edward Gawler Prior, BC’s Lt.-Gov. in 1919-20 (729 Pemberton Rd & 620 St. Charles St, Rockland). Francis retired from the army in 1929 and they returned to Victoria.
1941: Georgina Golby’s husband James was serving overseas in WWII.
1942-45: Canadian government carpenter George Alexander Cooney (b. Dublin, IRL 1887-1964) and Jane Anne (née Morrow, b. Wicklow, IRL 1889-1989).
1947: Carpetorium foreman Hugo Ruthven Braden (b. Victoria 1905-1991) and Maggie Agnes Pratt (née Clark); Tenants: Lorne C. and Nonie Smith lived and ran Addressograph Sales & Service here.
1948-61: John Gibson Cruickshank (b. Aberdeen, SCT 1891-1961) and Mary Minnie (née Aiken) retired here in 1948. John came to Canada in 1921 and was a general merchant in Saskatchewan.
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