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TC OP/ED losing Samuel MacLure design


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#1 martini

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Posted 19 October 2008 - 11:02 AM

Can we learn from our mistakes of past neglect?
Review of CRD's historic houses is badly needed before more are lost forever

Nick Russell
Times Colonist

Sunday, October 19, 2008

It's too late to stop the demolition of a handsome house designed by Samuel Maclure, in the heart of Victoria. But how is it possible to destroy a house designed by Victoria's finest residential architect?

The doomed house is at 1016 Richardson St. Samuel Maclure designed it in 1910 for Cecil Cookson. (He used a similar style for a house at 1025 Moss St.)

Like many fine buildings of the era, its owners eventually couldn't afford the servants to maintain it or the fuel to heat it. So 1016 was divided into suites, and the downward spiral began. Gradually, the house and its large yard were neglected and it became virtually invisible behind the wilderness. Recently, the homeless camped in the fine rooms with their ornate fireplaces.

In the 1970s, Victoria had begun an inventory of buildings for a heritage registry. But they missed the Cookson house, hidden in the urban forest. It's also missing from the fine University of Victoria archive of Maclure house plans and from every book devoted to Maclure.

So when a developer was looking recently for unloved properties to build townhouses, he spotted 1016 Richardson, and submitted plans for redevelopment. Heritage people protested to the city and the developer was shocked: He thought he was doing the community a favour, cleaning up the mess. He investigated moving the building, or even restoring it, but neither fitted the budget he had for his project.

So now, almost a century old, the house is to be demolished.

As a fundamental principle, we should not demolish buildings designed by Samuel Maclure. (Any more than we would destroy a Rattenbury -- or a Cezanne painting.) Yet Victoria has -- over the years -- already lost at least 10 Maclures.

Even more astonishing, there are at least another dozen houses designed by Samuel Maclure in Victoria that have no heritage protection.

Indeed, Victoria's Heritage Register is woefully incomplete. City planners are soliciting more voluntary heritage designations in Fairfield, but other areas desperately need review. James Bay's Community Plan is about 15 years old and it may be another five years before it's updated.

Meanwhile, heritage planners are far too short-staffed to negotiate protection for significant areas. While Development Permit Areas give some protection, Victoria still only has five small Heritage Conservation Areas. Several other heritage clusters should immediately be protected, such as South Turner and Medana and Amelia. In such areas, one demolition, renovation or addition can have catastrophic effect on the whole streetscape.

Then all citizens lose.

Because the Heritage Register is so out of date, we have lost a number of significant buildings recently.

- 438 Heather: Probably an 1870s bungalow, remodelled beyond recognition.

- 204 Government (1890): Opposite the Carr House, demolished for a duplex.

- 929 Burdett (1906): Likely doomed when the Angela College property is developed.

Many others are being gutted, then marketed as "heritage" homes.

A number of other significant buildings are currently vulnerable.

- 1909 Birch: Built 1902; demo by neglect.

- 2002 Richmond: The 1946 "Turner Café." Empty for years.

- "Caldwell Apts" (2321 Cook, 1913) and "Danescourt" (1176 Yates,1904). Empty apartment blocks.

- 1038 Fort: William Charles, Hudson Bay Chief Factor, lived here from about 1866.

- 323 Windermere: Built for the James Douglas family in 1903; now owned by a developer.

- 2581-3 Vancouver: "Modernized," but apparently built for Josette Work in the 1860s.

- 1322 Rockland (1894): Developers lust to surround it with townhouses.

These properties top what the Hallmark Society calls its "You-Don't-Know-What-You've-Got-Till-It's-Gone List." So it's not just Maclures that are at risk, but a range of significant buildings.

Sometimes councils have to bite the bullet. If Victoria had just said firmly "We don't demolish Maclures" when it learned the history of 1016 Richardson and designated it unilaterally, offering the owner some modest compensation to encourage his co-operation, then the house would be protected and could be converted -- say -- to subsidized housing.

And if owners flout the building code, the city should not just close the buildings down, but confiscate and refurbish them.

Victoria has an outstanding heritage record. But heritage streetscapes are central to our tourist economy. Every Capital Regional District municipality needs to fund a review of its historic housing stock, to protect buildings that are at risk and to create a number of new Heritage Conservation Areas to prevent piecemeal demolitions, alterations and spot-zoning. And they need to co-ordinate planning, design and heritage advisory committees, to ensure developers don't creep through the cracks.

We're losing a significant house designed by Samuel Maclure: We need to learn from the loss, and guarantee it doesn't ever happen again.

Nick Russell is president of the Hallmark Society and co-editor of Victoria Underfoot: Excavating a City's Secrets.

DEMOLITION FACTS

Many Maclure-designed buildings have already been demolished in Victoria, including:

- 957 Southgate;

- 1603 Rockland;

- 913 Burdette;

- 1586 Rockland;

- 715 Fort;

- 835 Pemberton;

- 844 View;

- 571 Yates;

- Robin Dunsmuir House on Esquimalt Road;

- 920 Beach Dr.

- - -

THE CECIL COOKSON HOUSE

Samuel Maclure's original drawings show a handsome Colonial/Tudor Revival style. The 12-room house has two storeys and a full basement. The front has buttressed corners leading up to leaded casement windows and half-timbering under an imposing hipped roof and corbelled chimneys.

The recessed front porch enters into a simple central hallway. Several rooms have tiled fireplaces with copper hoods.

It's a modest version of 906 Linden Ave., and perhaps both were inspired by "The Haven," which Maclure built in 1907 for his own family in Oak Bay (demolished).
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2008


http://www.canada.co...7ab41922e29&p=2

#2 victorian fan

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Posted 19 October 2008 - 01:56 PM



1016 Richardson

Whenever I drive around the Rockland area and look at old houses, I often wonder 'who owns these big piles' followed by 'I wonder what they look like inside'.
I've been in a some.

Many old houses gone since my youth. A shame.

#3 amor de cosmos

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Posted 19 October 2008 - 02:48 PM

meh. tear it down & replace it with a parking lot. that's the Victoria way!

#4 groundlevel

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Posted 19 October 2008 - 03:17 PM

Very sad about 2 of these neglected/derelict buildings -- the apartment buildings Caldwell Apts at 2321 Cook and Danescourt at 1176 Yates -- both owned by slum landlord Robin Kimpton, a lawyer who lives in Vancouver.

Bought by Victoria or by Cool Aid/Pacifica Housing/CRD Housing they could be renovated and turned into very nice low income or subsidized housing.

#5 victorian fan

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Posted 19 October 2008 - 05:02 PM

Bought by Victoria or by Cool Aid/Pacifica Housing/CRD Housing they could be renovated and turned into very nice low income or subsidized housing


That's great. I know this happens a lot in England. The houses have as many bed-sits, small kitchen and bathroom as possible. Then furnished with used sofas and beds with new mattress and bedding. They also included a small TV which, I suppose, couldn't be possible here.

#6 hoi polloi

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Posted 27 October 2008 - 11:00 PM

That's great. I know this happens a lot in England. The houses have as many bed-sits, small kitchen and bathroom as possible. Then furnished with used sofas and beds with new mattress and bedding. They also included a small TV which, I suppose, couldn't be possible here.


I wonder how often this happens here. Coming from Van, I know of a few houses carved up to mini suites and rooming houses. The local Roots and Roofs housing co-op seems keen to create more housing alts. Without gov $. Natch.

#7 Caramia

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Posted 28 October 2008 - 03:19 PM

Welcome to VV Hoi Polloi - I love your avatar!

They also included a small TV which, I suppose, couldn't be possible here.


Do TV's even come in small?
:D
Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

#8 Coreyburger

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Posted 28 October 2008 - 05:12 PM

OB council was debating the issues of demolition of historic homes as yet another demolition application came across the desk. Turns out the only way to save these buildings is to declare them historic. There is no other legal recourse, at least as far as the Local Gov act currently lays it out

#9 hoi polloi

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Posted 28 October 2008 - 10:12 PM

Welcome to VV Hoi Polloi - I love your avatar!



Do TV's even come in small?
:D


thank you for the warm welcome, Caramia:D

tv's do indeed come in 'small'...i keep the talking heads to a scale commensurate with their importance in my living room ;)

thank you to martini for the article previously posted- the endangered list inspires a scout through the city.

#10 Baro

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Posted 28 October 2008 - 10:21 PM

Propose a new development that saves the building, have it shot down by the CA's. Go through a development that fits within zoning bylaws but demolishes the building. Demolish the building then run out of money due to lengthy red-tape. Now that's the victoria way!
"beats greezy have baked donut-dough"

#11 Rob Randall

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Posted 21 November 2008 - 09:13 AM

Good Globe & Mail story on the restoration of a local MacLure house.

The couple's attention to detail meant finding a carpenter to recreate Maclure cabinetry and woodwork for the kitchen, bathrooms and custom laundry room.

The home's original specifications were used to figure out correct paint and stain colours for each room and period-appropriate William Morris wallpapers were chosen.

"There was one stain that we couldn't find anywhere," Ms. Maycock says. "Then one day I was reading a historic book and it mentioned that you could get that particular stain at a printing company. Because of that we were able to find it and match it."

After two professionals refused the job, her husband ("with a respirator, stripper, steel wool and a dental pick") tackled the front den himself and removed years of paint from the fir panelling.



#12 arfenarf

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Posted 21 November 2008 - 10:27 AM

...it reads to me like a marketing piece for a house they haven't been able to move at an outrageously high price, even for the neighbourhood.

#13 victorian fan

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Posted 21 November 2008 - 01:12 PM

...it reads to me like a marketing piece for a house they haven't been able to move at an outrageously high price, even for the neighbourhood.


Perhaps, but I'd still like to see inside.

#14 FunkyMunky

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Posted 21 November 2008 - 08:53 PM

So this is the same Brian Maycock who is resisting having The City Brokerage Building (Maycock Optical on Blanshard Street) being listed as a heritage building?

#15 victorian fan

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Posted 22 November 2008 - 09:46 AM

So this is the same Brian Maycock who is resisting having The City Brokerage Building (Maycock Optical on Blanshard Street) being listed as a heritage building?


Ironic?

#16 Ms. B. Havin

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Posted 22 November 2008 - 10:36 AM

I don't think there's a contradiction, if it is the same owner. The d/t building represents an underutilization of land. The house doesn't, plus it has far more value in terms of interior and exterior architectural detail and craftsmanship - and it's probably even a lot bigger than the d/t building (taller, bigger footprint), which again says something about its initial intrinsic value, just like the MacLure signature does.

The building d/t is of interest for its facade - it seems really weird to me to try to sign into any kind of law the underutilization of valuable land for the sake of a facade. (PS: whereby I mean having it listed as on a heritage registry, which seems to be the first step toward making it eventually impossible to alter the structure.)
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