ARCHITECTURE:
Hesket is a 2½-storey, front-gabled, Tudor Revival Arts & Crafts house. The garden façade on the right side has two gabled extensions; there is a full-height gabled bay and a small dormer on the left side. All gables have short finials. The garden façade has a balustraded balcony on the rear extension above what was originally the conservatory and a hip-roofed enclosed porch to the left. The front façade has a bank of four casement windows in a shallow oriel bay in the gable; on the main floor is an angled bay to the left of a porte-cochère with square brick piers which support a balustraded balcony; the porte-cochère shelters the main entry. Maclure added the angled bay, porte-cochère and the large balcony on the right rear. A belt course separates the the lower floor from the upper. The main storey is brick, the second is half-timbered and stuccoed, as are the gables except for the upper front and the rear gables, which are shingled. The quatrefoil motif in the front gable is repeated in the balcony balustrades. Hesket, which cost $7,500 initially, was built the same year as Joe Wilson’s brother Biggarstaff’s house at 1770 Rockland Av.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1905-55: Joseph “Joe” Eibeck Wilson (b. Victoria 1867-1945), eldest son of Victoria clothier William Wilson of W&J Wilson, married here in 1896 Augusta Amelia “Lillie” (née Erb, b. Victoria 1874-1955), eldest daughter of Ludwig Emil and Augusta Erb , owners of Victoria Brewery 1870-92. Her sister Bertha Mathilde “Tillie” married Biggerstaff Wilson (1770 Rockland Av) in 1900. Wilson became manager of the business when his Uncle Joseph Wilson died in 1900, a position he retained until shortly before his death, although he had passed active management duties to only son, Joseph “Harold” Wilson (b. Victoria 1901-1989), in 1922. The sisters attended Angela College (923 Burdett Av), Joe was educated in Switzerland. An avid golfer, he was a founding member of Seniors’ NW Golf Assoc in 1923 and won the grand championship in 1928 and 1929. In 1938 he was elected association president.
Hesket was converted to six suites in 1955, seven in 1956, and survived a serious fire in Sept 2015.