Victoria

Francis Rattenbury: A Halloween Horror Story

by Eve Lazarus on October 21, 2023

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 CPR Steamship Building, the Bank of Montreal on Government (Irish Times Pub), and the Law Courts (Vancouver Art Gallery), as well as his own Oak Bay Mansion–Iechinihl, now a private school.

Story from Sensational Victoria: Bright Lights, Red Light, Murders, Ghosts and Gardens

Francis Rattenbury's house — Iechinihl, ca. 1920. Courtesy Victoria Archives

Florrie:

In 1898, Rattenbury (or Ratz as he was known), stunned Victoria’s hierarchy by marrying Florence Eleanor Nunn, the adopted daughter of a woman who ran a boarding house. The couple had two children—Francis born in 1899 and Mary in 1904.

Gradually things started to unravel. Rattenbury had a falling out with the CPR and resigned as its architect. He demanded total control of his projects and would fire off pompous letters to clients who interfered with his plans. He lost a fortune in the crash of 1913. At home, things were falling apart.

Alma:

In 1923, with his career and marriage in tatters, Rattenbury met Alma Pakenham, twice-married and 30-years younger. When Florrie refused to divorce him, Rattenbury had the heat and electricity cut off at the house and scandalized Victoria’s society by flaunting his affair.

When Florrie eventually agreed to a divorce, as part of the settlement Rattenbury provided her with her own house. She bought a corner lot at 1513 Prospect Place. Samuel Maclure, who worked with Rattenbury on Government House, designed Florrie’s new home with a view of Iechinihl, where Rattenbury lived with Alma.

Florrie Rattenbury's house — Florrie’s house. 1513 Prospect Place. Courtesy BC Assessment

George:

Florrie died in 1929, the same year that Rattenbury and Alma moved to Bournemouth, England. By all accounts the architect should have ended his life in obscurity, but Alma took up with George Stoner, the 18-year-old chauffeur. In a fit of jealously, George bashed Rattenbury to death in 1935.

Alma Rattenbury — Vancouver Sun, June 5, 1935

Both Alma and George were tried for murder, Alma was acquitted, but after hearing George would hang, she promptly stabbed herself, fell into a river and drowned. George later had his death sentence overturned. He died in 2000 at age 83.

Listen to Will Woods tell the story of Francis Rattenbury on Episode 44 of Cold Case Canada Podcast and find out how you can get 15 percent off a Forbidden Vancouver walking tour.

Tags 1531 Prospect Place, 1701 Beach Drive, Alma Rattenbury, Florrie Rattenbury, Francis Rattenbury, Iechinihl, Samuel Maclure, Victoria

Wah Wong and the Parrot

by Eve Lazarus on December 31, 2011

The Chateau Victoria was built in 1974 on the former site of an old white mansion that housed a very old and wealthy parrot.

Louis the Macaw:

When I stayed in the Chateau Victoria while working on my book Sensational Victoria, I came across this story about Louis. This celebrity parrot, single handedly held up development in the downtown core. Louis, who was profiled in Life Magazine and has a heritage award named after him, lived to the ripe old age of 115 on a diet of hard-boiled eggs, walnuts and brandy fed to him by a Chinese manservant, while he ruled the roost in a white mansion near the Empress Hotel.

As far as I can make out, Louis hatched in the early 1860s in South America. Seems he kicked around there for awhile before ending up in the possession of five-year-old Victoria Jane Wilson.

The Wilsons:

Jane’s mother Mary, the daughter of Alexander Munro, came from well-heeled fur trading stock. Her father, James Keith Wilson, manager of the Bank of BC, dabbled in real estate. Wilson bought a chunk of prime real estate at 730 Burdett Street, built the three-storey mansion, and because he was over protective of Jane to the point of paranoia, surrounded it with high walls.

As Jane grew older and more eccentric, she added 60-odd exotic birds to her collection, keeping them in an aviary that took up the top floor of the house. In 1911, Jane painfully shy, but pleasantly rich, decided that fresh air would benefit Louis, her favourite. She bought a Hupp Yeats electric car and took driving lessons. Unfortunately Louis disliked the noise of the outdoors and the smelly fumes, so the car stayed in the garage.

The Will:

Jane’s mother died in 1917, her father in 1934 and Jane lived on in the house until her own death in 1949. When the lawyers read the will they found that she was worth around $500,000 (about $6.2 million today), with an estate that included over 100 pairs of white gloves, the aviary and a car that had clocked up less than 50 miles and was found sealed inside the garage. While most of her money went to charity, she left Louie with a $200 a week stipend and appointed Wah Wong the Chinese gardener as trustee and parrot keeper.

According to the terms of the Will, the property could be sold, but not developed while the birds remained alive. In other words, the birds stayed on as tenants.

Louis and Wah Wong watched while the mansion changed hands several times, was divided up into apartments and left slowly to rot into a downtown eyesore. They managed to stave off its destruction for 17 years, but eventually got the boot when the developers won and bulldozed the mansion to make room for the 19-storey Chateau Victoria Hotel.

Wah Wong refused to give interviews, but according to newspaper reports, Louis lived with him until he died in 1967. Then, like his owner, Louis turned reclusive and lived out the rest of his life in obscurity until his own death in 1985.

Louis went to live with Wah Wong after developers kicked him out of his mansion — Is this the house where Louis lived out his last days?

Update:

Is the Chateau Victoria haunted? Of course. It’s #9 on Tourism Victoria’s Top 10 Most Haunted Places. According to the story, Victoria Jane used to hang out at the main bar. Guests remembered her because she was dressed in old fashioned clothes and would vanish in front of them. Sometimes Victoria rides up and down the elevator with them, stopping at each floor.

Tags 1706 Denman, 730 Burdett Street, 798 Burdett, Alexander Munro, Chateau Victoria Hotel, Empress Hotel, Hallmark Society, Hupp Yeats, James Keith Wilson, Life Magazine, Louis Award, Louis the Parrot, Mary Wilson, Victoria, Victoria Jane Wilson, Wah Wong

The Coach House

by Eve Lazarus on August 21, 2011

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. Andrews Street. It’s built on land that was once owned by Emily Carr’s father Richard, and a stone’s throw from Carr House on Government Street where Emily was born, her own house and the subject of her book “the House of All Sorts,” and the two houses owned by her sisters. I couldn’t find any mention of the house in any of the heritage inventory books, so decided to do a bit of research of my own.

247 St. Andrews Street, Victoria — The Coach House in the 1970s

Current owners Jackie and Martin Somers named it the Coach House and Jackie says that she’d always thought of it as belonging to a coachman because the story went that it was used as the coach house for a mansion on Douglas Street—in those days Douglas was called Katherine Street. As Jackie notes, what you see from St Andrews Street was originally the back of the house. The front has a pretty Tudor-style trim, which is now hidden by an ugly parkade. When the house was built pre-1900, Marifield Avenue didn’t exist—it would have been the driveway to Bishop Cridge’s house of the same name.

Gwen Cash and the Trend House

by Eve Lazarus on May 27, 2011

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 Cash, Times Colonist, April 4, 1970

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. “Frankly I don’t remember much about the visit except that there were all sorts of odd things strung up in the ceiling and I was fascinated and a little scared of Emily,” she writes in Off the Record. Gwen and her husband Bruce settled in Victoria in 1935 and Gwen got to know the artist when when she was public relations officer for the Empress Hotel and Emily lived on Beckley Street.

She wrote three books including her memoir, Off the Record.

Gwen Cash portrait by Myfanwy Pavelic appeared on the cover of Off the Record, 1977. Jack Cash photo, Courtesy Derek Cash

Commissions the Trend House:

In 1954, Gwen had John di Castri design a house to prove that small didn’t have to mean a box. Called the Trend House, it was one of 11 built in Canada and sponsored by BC forest industries to boost retail lumber, plywood, and shingle sales.

At 835 sq.ft. Gwen’s house was the smallest, but also the most talked about. “Mine was the smallest of the trend houses but the most talked and written about. Conventional Victorian viewers, addicted to pseudo-Tudor or modern box construction, were puzzled and vaguely angered by its unique design. Like modern painting it was something that they couldn’t understand” she wrote. The house was opened to the public for three months and more than 34,000 people trekked through.

Trend house photo by Jack Cash appeared in Western Homes and Living August 1960. Courtesy Derek Cash

Lady:

Derek Cash remembers staying at Trend House he was a small boy. He was fascinated by his outspoken and flamboyant grandmother and remembers her dressing in bright clothes with lots of scarves, hats and danging jewellery. She also had her three grandchildren call her “lady.”

Trend House, 3516 Richmond Road, Victoria 2011. Eve Lazarus photo

“I don’t think she really liked being thought of as a grandmother,” says Derek. “We did not call her grandma. We were told to call her “Lady.” At the time it was a name just like nanny. It wasn’t until we got older that we realized it sounded funny.”

After Gwen sold in 1967, the second owner added two rooms and a sun porch.

The other trend houses are in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, London, Winnipeg, Regina and Edmonton. There’s also one at 4342 Skyline Drive, North Vancouver, designed by Porter & Davidson Architects. Michael Kurtz owns the Calgary trend house.

Designed by John di Castri for Gwen Cash in 1954 — Architectural drawings for the Trend House

Gwen died in 1983 at 95.

Tags 3516 Richmond Road, 4342 Skyline Drive, BC Forest Industries, Broom Corner, Gwen Cash, John di Castri, Michael Kurtz, North Vancouver, Off the Record, Porter & Davidson Architects, Trend House Program, Vancouver Daily Province, Victoria, Walter Nichol

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