432 replies to this topic

[LJ]

To validate your claim. Don't want to perpetuate another John Travolta-like rumour.

I don't need to validate "my claim", I know it is true or I would have said that "I heard" or "someone said" as a qualifier or I wouldn't have said anything at all.

How would my giving you the exact address validate my claim anyway, you planning on going out and sitting in front of the property till he shows up?

Doing a title search would probably turn up a company name, that you wouldn't recognize anyway.

[VicHockeyFan]

Don't forget

They did extra dredging of the harbour to accommodate that last time it was here.

[G-Man]

I heard John Travolta has a place in Central Saanich.

[Mike K.]

anyone heard where on the island David Foster`s property is

He owns a penthouse in Shoal Point, too.

I heard John Travolta has a place in Central Saanich.

That he does. The media went crazy when he bought the house.

[Phil McAvity]

You'd think that if David Foster or John Travolta owned property that they'd be spotted here at least occasionally, yet i've never heard of anyone ever spotting either of them here. Well except for that one time over 20 years ago when David Foster showed up at Mount Doug (his alma mater) and gave a short speech that yours truly attended. I think the glee club had more people turn up at one of their meetings than this impromptu thing with Foster.

[Holden West]

The media went crazy when [Travolta] bought the house.

Uh, yeah...by saying it wasn't true.

Feverish rumours cast star in North Saanich

Jim Gibson
Times - Colonist May 18, 2003

It's the real estate rumour, as the song linked to John Travolta goes, that's Stayin' Alive in North Saanich.

The Hollywood actor has bought a Saanich Peninsula waterfront in Deep Cove. No wait, so the story mutates, it's on Land's End Road. Actually, those in the know swear it's Chalet Road.

No wait, he's not buying a house. Travolta's building one ... a big mother of a place on Land's End Road. No, it's definitely Ardmore. That's what the neighbours are saying even if none have set eyes on the actor, who danced his way to fame and fortune as the white-suited disco king Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever.

And so it goes, as it has for the last five years, according to clerk James Ellis, ringing up sales at the Deep Cove Save On Gas.

"Every new house in North Saanich is John Travolta's," adds a woman customer, pleading anonymity.

She's been hearing it for years, probably from the sort of people, who bask in the reflected glitter of a Hollywood celeb somewhere nearby. And the rumour doesn't hurt real estate prices, either.

No doubt North Saanich mayor Ted Daly would rush right over to officially welcome Travolta to the municipality -- if he had an address. Daly is almost blase about a Hollywood-type calling North Saanich home even for a few days a year.

"All the important people come to North Saanich eventually," deadpans Daly, who admits to being in Travolta's debt. Apparently his worship learned his dance floor moves from Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.

Nor is it just fancy big houses that end up tagged as Travolta's. Any new building around the back side of the airport property soon becomes a hangar for one of the Hollywood pilot's three planes -- a Lear jet, Gulfstream and 707.

A few months back the buzz around the Deep Cove Store had Travolta buying the Bodine place -- Villa Madrona, now on the international real estate market for $12.5 million US.

"I heard he bought my farm, too," says a patient Ralph Bodine on the phone from the unsold Villa Madrona, referring to his race horse nursery, Orange Blossom Farm, just around the corner at the top of West Saanich Road.

"He's bought so many places, you wouldn't believe it," quips Realtor Peter Nash, who has sold several seven-figure Peninsula properties in recent years. He's heard that Travolta in a Rolls Royce was seen leaving some choice, but unlisted, Central Saanich -- sorry, Mayor Daly -- waterfront.

Nash is used to celebrity-hype swelling up around expensive waterfront property. He even heard Robert de Niro snapped up the $4.2-million Deep Cove Chalet. That was news to Nash, the listing realtor, who sold it to former Albertan Bill Winspear.

Two huge houses are under construction on a stretch of Land's End Road, dubbed Arizona Row because of their owners. "It's definitely not John Travolta's," says a landscaper outside one as she unloads plants. Down the road, Doug Shea of Simply Automated, said the house, in which he was installing a home theatre, belongs to an Arizona family.

However, Shea knew the Travolta stories, even passing one along about the actor strolling solo on Deep Cove beach. Curiously absent from this story is the usual Hollywood paranoia. Supposedly, Travolta happily pointed out his house to the total strangers he met on the beach.

It turns out that electricians are right up there with hairdressers when it comes to hot gossip. At least, they are with the dish of who's doing what to whom construction-wise.

"We're the worst gossips," confesses Kevin Lough, a sales rep at Nedco, the electrical supply company.

"If it were true, I'd probably have heard something," says Lough about the Travolta story. "I often hear stuff like that."

Frequently cited as Travolta's future home away from Hollywood is 547 Ardmore. The rumour was further stoked last month when CH-TV's Meribeth Burton did a "speculative" piece on the house under construction. This week both the contractor and a tradesman say the grand house -- think New England resort hotel circa 1900 -- belongs to an Alberta oilman.

"I've heard that rumour for months," says venerable artist Myfanwy Pavelic, next door to the purported Travolta house on Ardmore. She has never seen Travolta, but has an amateur pilot friend who once met him at the airport.

But not in the past five years, hazards Brent Sheldrew, manager of the Shell Aerocentre, where private planes land at Victoria International airport. People tend to talk when someone famous flies in, he says.

However, Travolta twice flew into Victoria in the summer of '98. He wasn't exactly a recluse, spending Saturday night at the movies with friends downtown at the Capital Six. The origins of the Travolta house rumour seem to date back to then.

Several calls this week to Travolta's agent Fred Westheimer at Hollywood's William Morris Agency did not exactly kill off the rumour. Instead of confirming or denying, an assistant-to Westheimer eventually told the Times Colonist "We actually have no comment for your story."

Even for Hollywood-speak, that's a puzzler, according to TC movie guy Michael D. Reid, who has heard them all.

"It's possible," allows Reid, inadvertently fanning the embers of the Travolta rumour that just won't go away.

[Holden West]

More bogus rumours:

Home to a veritable Who's Who of non-residents

Jack Knox
Times - Colonist Feb 22, 2004
[snip]
Vancouver Island in general is crawling with celebrities. Sometimes you have to beat them away with a stick they're so thick. Diana Krall comes from Nanaimo. Kim Cattrall went to one of the Comox Valley's high schools and Pamela Anderson the other. Victoria is awash in Tilly sisters. And I know perfectly sensible grown women who walk into walls when Colin Firth comes to town.

But the best famous people are the ones you never see, but only hear about. In Victoria, they are most often found on the Manhattan- sized yachts that swing into the Inner Harbour with helicopters perched astern. "That's Bill Gates-Barbara Streisand-Paul Anka's boat," people say.

Our invisible celebrities live tucked away on sprawling properties in fabulous homes. "That's where Deep Purple's former bass player lives," people will say, nodding at a dirt driveway that disappears into the trees. "I know a guy whose cousin dug his wave pool."

No one ever sees them firsthand.

Danny DeVito is in this category. So is John Travolta, who is the most famous person never to have bought property in North Saanich.
Elton John and Steven Spielberg don't live on Saltspring Island, home to a veritable Who's Who of non-residents.

Saltspring's gossip mill is so A-list that favoured-rumour status is refused anyone who has not won an Oscar or enjoyed a relationship with Winona Ryder.

No one like this didn't live in my community when I was a kid. Money was tight and we couldn't afford fancy rumours. There was a neighbour who went to jail for punching out the cop who was sleeping with his wife, but that was as close as we got.

Anyway, as a student of the where-there's-smoke-there's-fire school, I'd like to believe the DeVito story is real. If it were totally baseless, the rumour would have been about someone sexier -- Shania maybe, or Michelle Pfeiffer. That's proof enough for me.

[victorian fan]

Robin Hood's (Richard Greene) mother lived on Clovelly Terrace.

[LJ]

You'd think that if David Foster or John Travolta owned property that they'd be spotted here at least occasionally, yet i've never heard of anyone ever spotting either of them here. Well except for that one time over 20 years ago when David Foster showed up at Mount Doug (his alma mater) and gave a short speech that yours truly attended. I think the glee club had more people turn up at one of their meetings than this impromptu thing with Foster.

David Foster's property is bare land, well not bare, there are lots of trees and rocks and water, so unless he is on a camping trip you probably wont see him there.

[Phil McAvity]

David Foster's property is bare land, well not bare, there are lots of trees and rocks and water, so unless he is on a camping trip you probably wont see him there.

Of course, the one sandwiched between Barbra Streisand and John Travolta's place. They all live right near Mel Gibson too. Since you can't verify that in any way and we have very good reason to not believe it, why don't you take your bullshit somewhere else LJ.

Judging by VHF's picture, i'm pretty sure he knows where one of the stars of that show used to live.

[G-Man]

There was an artist known as Emily Carr that lived in James Bay.

[victorian fan]

There was an artist known as Emily Carr that lived in James Bay.

My grandparents, mother, aunt & uncle lived with her in the House of Allsorts in the 30s.
Alice Carr had a school and my mother helped her.
Emily gave my grandmother some painting but Granny didn't care for them. When the family bought their own home, the paintings were put in the crawl space beneath the house.

[Phil McAvity]

There was an artist known as Emily Carr that lived in James Bay.

I like your condescending tone but Emily Carr is one of those people that is famous around here for just that-because she's from around here. I'll bet if you went to many other parts of Canada you'd find people that have never even heard of her and if you polled people internationally even far fewer would know who she was.

[LJ]

[quote name='Phil McAvity']Of course, the one sandwiched between Barbra Streisand and John Travolta's place. They all live right near Mel Gibson too. Since you can't verify that in any way and we have very good reason to not believe it, why don't you take your bullshit somewhere else LJ.

quote]
Testy little twit aren't you!

I could give you the address of the property - but how would that help "verify" anything. I haven't tried but I assume it would show up on a title search as a company name.

Why do have "good reason" not to believe it, his family was from Victoria and the property was family property that was divided among family members. His sister sold her property and it was subdivided. He hung on to his piece.

People I know bought one of the subdivided pieces and live there now.

I have met David a couple of times and he mentioned that he still owned the property.

So there you go sport, if you choose not to believe it that's fine with me, but I do not spread rumour or gossip and try to pass it off as the truth so I will thank you not to paint me with your bullshit brush.

[Rob Randall]

My grandparents, mother, aunt & uncle lived with her in the House of Allsorts in the 30s.
Alice Carr had a school and my mother helped her.
Emily gave my grandmother some painting but Granny didn't care for them. When the family bought their own home, the paintings were put in the crawl space beneath the house.

Amazing. Do you know what Carr's are worth? Even the lesser oil on paper ones? Do you know the fate of the paintings?

[Rob Randall]

I like your condescending tone but Emily Carr is one of those people that is famous around here for just that-because she's from around here. I'll bet if you went to many other parts of Canada you'd find people that have never even heard of her and if you polled people internationally even far fewer would know who she was.

You're probably right. Carr's most famous recent exhibition was "Carr, O'Keefe, Kahlo: Places of Their Own" which toured North America, but her paintings were grouped with Frida Kahlo and Georgia O'Keefe so she was seen more as an overlooked female artist or even a feminist icon than just an artist period. Others saw her notable for her connection to First Nations culture (again, often overshadowing the art itself). By the time Carr started her career with expressionistic interpretations of nature, Europe had already moved on to new types of modernism. I'm pretty sure if Carr had stayed in San Francisco or Paris she'd be less known.

[yodsaker]

Amazing. Do you know what Carr's are worth? Even the lesser oil on paper ones? Do you know the fate of the paintings?

My neighbour's father sold two at Kilshaw's several years ago.
I was there that night and remember one going for 40 something thousand and I think the two brought about 90K.
Don Kilshaw said they would have brought much much more if they had been on canvas.

[G-Man]

John Hamilton Gray is buried at Ross Bay Cemetery, of course he is one of our fathers of confederation.

[victorian fan]

Amazing. Do you know what Carr's are worth? Even the lesser oil on paper ones? Do you know the fate of the paintings?

I imagine they disentigrated from moisture and time (over 30 years). The house (in James Bay) was sold for $3,000 then torn down and the property became a parking lot. Townhouses there now.
We still have some Emily Carr pottery that Granny stowed away.

[Rob Randall]

I imagine they disentigrated from moisture and time (over 30 years). The house (in James Bay) was sold for $3,000 then torn down and the property became a parking lot. Townhouses there now.
We still have some Emily Carr pottery that Granny stowed away.

That's such an avoidable mistake. Even thirty years ago Carr's work was extremely valuable (remember the Provincial Carr gallery on Wharf St.?)

Unfortunately, the frugal Carr often used gasoline and manila paper instead of turpentine and archival paper making much of her paper work extremely fragile. I know a local paper conservator that can restore artwork--even works that are moldy and disintegrating.