Louis the celebrity parrot inherited a three-storey mansion and managed to stave off development for 17 years, before the estate succumbed to “progress” and was bulldozed to make way for the Chateau Victoria Hotel in 1966.
Sylvia Holland was the first registered female architect in British Columbia. After her husband died, she took her two children and moved to Los Angeles where she worked for Universal Studios and later MGM as a background artist. Walt Disney hired her as one of his first women animators.
See the full story in Sensational Victoria: Bright lights, red lights, murders, ghosts and gardens
I had a really interesting chat with Theo Halladay recently.
See the full story in Sensational Victoria: Bright lights, red lights, murders, ghosts and gardens
When I was mapping out a walking tour of James Bay for Sensational Victoria not too long ago, I came across the Coach House, an early carriage-style residence tucked away at the point where Marifield Avenue runs into St.
When Gwen Cash went to work for Walter Nichol at the Vancouver Daily Province in 1917, she was one of the first women general reporters in the country.
From a story in Sensational Victoria: Bright lights, red lights, murders, ghosts and gardens
Gwen meets Emily Carr:
Gwen met Emily Carr when she was sent to Victoria by the Province to interview a woman writer boarding at The House of All Sorts on Simcoe Street.
Laura West was in her garden one day about two years ago when a family of strangers drove slowly past her house. They rolled down the car window, excused themselves for staring, and told her that their great grandparents had built her house in 1904.
Shahn Torontow has always loved Jonie Mitchell’s song “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” So when a parking lot became available on Steel Street in Victoria, he decided to put up his vision of paradise.
Mark Lindholm is the not so proud owner of the house across from his Westbay Marine Village in Esquimalt. He plans to develop the area into a mixed commercial and residential development and the house came with the land. It also came with a pirate on the roof, a crow’s nest by the front door, a ship’s cannon, anchor, Neptune, a mermaid and a stork made by the house’s owner John Keziere.
The Victoria Heritage Foundation lists over 150 buiildings on its heritage inventory for James Bay. Some day back to the 1860s.