Samuel Maclure

Emily Carr’s 100-year-old Oak Bay cabin could be yours for $5.5 million dollars! The good news is that it comes with a 10-bedroom heritage house designed by Samuel Maclure. In 1913, Emily Carr paid $900 for a plot of land on Victoria Avenue in Oak Bay. According to a story,* she built a 12 by… Continue reading Emily Carr’s $5.5 Million Cabin

Francis Rattenbury moved to Victoria in 1892. The 25-year-old had beat out 60 other architects to win the design competition for BC’s Parliament Buildings. Although massively over budget, the commission propelled the young architect’s career, and before long he had a slew of buildings after his name including the Empress Hotel, The Crystal Gardens, the… Continue reading Francis Rattenbury: A Halloween Horror Story

Earlier this month, St. John Alexander invited me to hang out at Overlynn, a Burnaby mansion for a CTV news Halloween segment. I spent an amazing Saturday with St. John, Greg Mansfield and Amanda Quill—two experienced ghost hunters. Listen to Cold Case Canada podcast Episode 34 Charles Peter: As the history geek in the group,… Continue reading Overlynn: Burnaby’s most haunted mansion

We probably have more monkey puzzle trees in BC than in all of their native Chile. The quirky trees started arriving in gardens in the 1920s. In 2012, I wrote a book called Sensational Victoria and one of my favourite chapters was Heritage Gardens. I visited and then wrote about large rich-people’s gardens like Hatley… Continue reading Vancouver’s Monkey Puzzle Tree Obsession

This is an occasional series that asks people who love history and heritage to tell us their favourite existing building and the one that never should have been torn down. Patrick Dunae: Patrick A. Dunae is a Victoria-born historian. A past member of the City of Victoria Heritage Advisory Panel, he is currently president of the Friends… Continue reading Heritage Streeters from Victoria (with Patrick Dunae, Tom Hawthorn and Eve Lazarus)

Never heard of Manson’s Deep? You’re not alone. It’s one of the deepest points in Howe Sound just off Point Atkinson. It’s also been a burial ground for old sailors since 1941. Manson’s Deep gets its name from Captain Thomas Manson who came to Vancouver from Scotland in 1892. According to an article by Kellsie… Continue reading Vancouver Heritage House Tour and Manson’s Deep

It’s hard to imagine today, but from the 1930s until the mid 1950s there were three daily newspapers—the Vancouver Sun, the Province and the Vancouver News-Herald operating in Vancouver—all independents fighting for market share in a population of less than 350,000. The Vancouver News-Herald called itself “Western Canada’s Largest Morning Herald.” When it was founded… Continue reading From Newspapers to Exotic Escorts: Repurposing old buildings

A couple of weeks ago my friend Tom Carter and I climbed to the top of the Sun Tower, one of my favourite buildings in Vancouver. It’s also one of our most familiar landmarks, and at one time the tallest building in the British Empire when mayor, L.D. Taylor had it built over a century… Continue reading The Sun Tower: On Top of the World

To mark the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, this week’s blog is a story about Mabel Fortune Driscoll who survived the disaster, moved to Victoria and lived there until her death in 1968. The full story appears in Sensational Victoria. Mabel Helen Fortune was 23 when she set off for a tour of… Continue reading The Titanic’s British Columbia Connection

Five amazing women who put their stamp on BC in unique ways. There is more information about them in At Home with History, Sensational Victoria and Sensational Vancouver, and in the books listed below. Capi Blanchet (1891–1961)   Capi Blanchet was found dead in 1961, slumped over her typewriter while writing a sequel to The Curve of… Continue reading Five Amazing Women of BC

Alvo von Alvensleben not only has a name you couldn’t make up, he’s one of the most fascinating characters in BC’s history. For some mysterious reason he has never rated a biography, but there is a chapter dedicated to him in my book At Home with History. I was just browsing my bookshelf and thinking… Continue reading The Mulligan Affair and other BC characters

For more stories about L.D. Taylor’s Vancouver see: At Home with History: the secrets of Greater Vancouver’s Heritage Homes Mayor Gregor Robertson held a press conference Friday announcing the City’s receipt of a $30-million anonymous donation to reopen Taylor Manor. After an extensive renovation and upgrade, the house will provide housing for 56 people with… Continue reading L.D. Taylor and the History of Taylor Manor

Last week Heritage Vancouver released its annual top ten list of endangered heritage sites in Vancouver. Three schools topped the list, but the residence considered most in danger is the four-hectare Shannon Estate at the corner of Granville and 57th. Note that it’s not the 40-room mansion that’s under threat, it’s Shannon Mews, the infill townhouse… Continue reading The Shannon Estate: Fourth most endangered heritage site