ARCHITECTURE:
Glenlyon is a 2½-storey, hip-roofed, Tudor Revival Arts & Crafts house. There are three flat-roofed dormers with small modillions, the front and side dormers have three leaded glass windows. The upper floor is half-timbered, accented under the windows with arched detail; this detail is modified on the porte-cochère balustrade. The main floor and porte-cochère piers are of rustic granite. The front entrance porch is recessed under the porte-cochère. The street façade has a wide projection on the right, separated from the main wall by an angled entry bay; the projection has a central one-storey, flat-roofed box bay. The left side of the house has a similar box bay. Windows are all multi-lights-over-one, often in groups of three. Prominent granite chimneys have flat, over-hanging concrete caps. The low front wall and heavily-capped gate posts are of granite; the wall retains its decorative swag wrought iron fence. Glenlyon was built for $20,000; in 1953 it was converted into suites by Eleanor Yager, one of Victoria’s first female architects, for Grace and Claude Belcher.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1914-15: John Ross owned it for just two years, then disappeared.
1916-17: Laura Martin Fraser (née English, b. San Francisco 1873-1958) came to Canada with family in 1874. She first married Henderson Clinton (1860-1898) here in 1895, then James Sutherland Chisholm Fraser in New Westminster in 1903. He was manager of Victoria branch BMO in 1912 and they lived at 1715 Rockland Av. He died of ptomaine poisoning in Toronto in 1914.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1918: Can Bank of Commerce manager William Hamer Hargrave (b. Richmond, QC 1864-1950) and Lily Blanche (née Sicotte, b. St. Hyacinthe, QC 1869-1928). They lived in 1007 Joan Cr 1920-21.
1920: Harry and Margaret Bullen moved here from 1007 Joan Cr while 906 St. Charles St was being built.
1923-47: Hon. Lorne Argyle Campbell, MLA (b. Perth, ON 1871-1947) married in 1903 Mary Spahr (née Hosier, b. Jamestown, OH, USA 1881-1941) who came to Canada in 1902. He earned a degree in electrical engineering and in 1889 joined Edison General Electric Co in Toronto. In 1891 at age 22 he became chief engineer of its successor, Canadian General Electric. He came to Rossland, BC in 1898 as gen mgr, then VP of West Kootenay Power & Light (WKPL). He was elected to represent Rossland-Trail in 1912, and was BC Min of Mines 1916-20. The Campbells moved here in 1923. By the 1940s he was Pres of WKPL and McGillivray Creek Coal & Coke Co, and a director of Consolidated Mining & Smelting Co. Although living here about 20 years, he was more closely associated with Rossland, returning there in 1946 where he died. The house and contents were sold by auction Sept 1947.
1948-51: William Thomas Henry (b. Charlottetown, PEI 1871-1952), proprietor of Tweedsmuir Mansions (TM), 900 Park Blvd, lived in TM 1945-47, after the death of his wife Ada Clara (née Battrick, b. Toronto 1870-1944). They married in Calgary in 1893. He died in Los Angeles, CA.
1953-58: Claude Alfred Belcher (b. Kelliher, SK 1908-1957) came to Victoria in 1924 and married Grace Jean (nee MacDonald, b. Wyevale ON 1907-?) in 1931 at 1555 Pembroke St). He was listed as a Victoria Police Officer and she as an RN on their 1931 marriage cert. He was then prop of a news & tobacco shop on Yates St, then Douglas St, then prop of Parkside Apts on Cook St in 1938, then a real estate salesman with Rithet Consolidated Ltd. In 1959 Grace lived at 1270 Beach Dr with daughter Jeannie who attended St. Margaret’s School.