515-517 Wilson Street, Victoria, BC

This is another one in Vic West, built in 1912, a lovely character home. It's got finials! And drop finials!

And obvious fire damage. Its story is pretty sad. First, there was a fire in January 2014. According to Victoria News: "A top-floor suite at a Vic West character home is uninhabitable [...] after a coil heater overloaded an extension cord. Victoria fire crews were called to the home [...] around 6:45 a.m. Inside, they found a man struggling to put out a hallway fire that was spreading from the carpet up the walls of his suite."

The Times-Colonist fills in more details: "Contrary to bylaws, the smoke alarm in the top-floor suite was not working, said Victoria Fire inspector Chris Royle. The top-floor suite had heavy smoke damage. Total damage is estimated at $20,000. The other suites are habitable and the tenants have returned home. [...] A long, lightweight extension cord powering a small space heater was found coiled on the carpet with some clothes on top. The heater was always running, putting the cord under a constant load. Royle said an electrical cord coiled and bundled together produces heat, which it can’t dissipate, causing the cord to melt and ignite."

Here's the house in May 2014, though (via Google), still looking fine from outside.

What makes the story so sad is that there was another, much worse fire in February 2015. You can read the whole story here, but basically the fire started in the basement around 10 p.m. and spread quickly; everyone got out, but there wasn't much the firefighters could do. A woman and her son had just moved into the top floor suite, which had just been fixed up after the 2014 fire, earlier that day. (More of their story specifically is in this article--really sad. :( There's also a post-fire interior photo.) The first article says that "The landlord, Tasma Hinch, inspected the damage on Monday, walking past the charred walls and stepping over debris in a state of near-disbelief. Hinch, who has owned the home for the last 40 years, said she expects it will take a year and a half to repair the structure". The fire caused about $600,000 worth of damage, rendering the house completely uninhabitable. One more relevant article is here. A previous tenant mourned the situation on Facebook, saying the house "had a cuteness about it".

Google's photos from May 2015 show signs that work is being done on it, or was; as you can see from my photos (taken just the other day), it doesn't look like much is going on now.

Here are a few more of mine. I love that house next door, a heritage-designated home built in 1906.

You can see where this is on the house in the third photo from the top

I'll be keeping an eye on it to see if the renovations progress, and I'll post an update here if I see that anything's changed.

234 Edward Street, Victoria, BC

I happened upon this one while biking in Vic West today. Ever since I started keeping an eye out for abandoned/boarded-up buildings, I've realized just how many there are around here (and probably every city), including some really interesting ones that aren't talked about online at all--like this one.

See older images below--two of these side windows were previously stuccoed over

There used to be a porch supporting the roof; see below

I could only find two references to it online. The first is this 2010 ad (found on page 4 here). The house looks pretty different, right?

Built in 1905; "offers a grand entry [and] gorgeous wood stair railing"; "needs work" but "what an exciting opportunity!"

Here it is in 2009 (thanks, Google!). This is the view from Edward Street; check out the Catherine Street view here.

See? Only one window on the side. Lovely stained glass on the bay window.

Ugh, stucco--but the new owners were taking the stucco off, restoring the house, in fact, according to the Victoria Heritage Foundation, which claims it "was rehabilitated in 2011-12". Here it is in August 2011, stucco mostly gone.

Here you can see that the new window was put in right where two old windows used to be

And June 2012, all stucco gone except the small patch that's still there today.

All windows free! Of both stucco and boards. Still loving the stained glass. Enjoy a close-up here.

Something's also going on with the porch there, and it was gone by September 2012.

In the next street view image, May 2014, it looks basically like it does now. So someone started fixing it up... and then stopped. Did they find something wrong with the house that made it not worth continuing? Was there a fire? Money issues? And will the work ever continue, or is the house (built in 1905, remember) now doomed to slowly rot away?

One more interesting thing to note is that e-valueBC, who assessed it in 2014, refers to it as a "non-manualized structure". Unfortunately, it doesn't look like that term is actually defined anywhere online. The "comments" section of the assessment page says "building unfinished". Thanks, e-valueBC. I just wish you could tell me why!

1531 Elford Street, Victoria, BC

This one is tucked away on a quiet street, hidden by trees until you get up close. Sadly, it's been scheduled for demolition for a little while.

According to e-valueBC (a helpful site which I recently discovered), it was built in 1910 and has four bedrooms and three bathrooms. The Hallmark Heritage Society describes it as "Unique. Designed in 1909 for Major Dupont by Thomas Sorby" (the link, from 2011, also has a photo). I can't find any other information on that claim, but the Victoria/BC directories (just discovered these too--a great resource!) from 1910-23 say that a George H. Robertson lived there. He or a household member apparently lost their spectacles in June 1910: "LOST — BETWEEN ELFORD STREET and Fernwood road on Fort street, a pair of plain gold spectacles. Reward" reads the ad.

In 1924 and 1925 it was vacant, and then a string of different people occupied it (I have the names if anyone is interested, but right now I won't bother including them). Sadly, the online directories only go through 1955; directories exist up until the present day, but they're not available online. If they were, I'd be able to tell exactly when the house fell vacant.

Without those, I can't find any info on it until after it had already become dilapidated. First, I have this quote in my notes, but apparently didn't include the source (so sloppy!), so I'm not sure where it came from or when it was written: The "house has been boarded up for a number of years. The City of Victoria Police Department and the Building Inspection and Fire Department had been called many times to this house as a result of 'squatters' moving in and, as the heat and power was off, starting fires to keep warm and, as a result of no water, leaving the site in an unsanitary condition."

In a December 2014 Facebook discussion, someone said it "has been empty as long as I remember" and another explained that "it was trashed by squatters before they put up the fences and plywood..it would be a complete 'gut job' for sure". In a later discussion (April 2015) the same person states that it "was trashed by crack heads 2-3 years ago, and was a rooming house for a while before that [... it] may have been a beautiful old home about 10 years ago".

It's right on the border of Stadacona Park, which gave me a great view of the back

The back in context

Here it is in June 2009, pre-boarding up, courtesy of Google Maps.

And more relevant info/links from over the years, in chronological order:

• April 2010 (or before): "This is a large empty 2+ story house tucked away on a quiet street & well hidden by large shrubs. Looks as though it has been empty for some time, though the front window has attracted some rocks none of the doors or windows have been boarded up."
• You can see on Google street view that it's been boarded up by September 2011; not posting the picture because you can't see it very well through the trees.
• September 2012: "theres a huge old abandoned house on Elford just behind stadacona park […] theres an open door on the back right side."
• Some people made use of this open door to go in and take photos, also in September 2012. Since I'll never be brave enough to go in myself before it's knocked down, I love that I'm able to see the inside through these pictures. There are several nice old fireplaces, and the blog author says, "This place would have been in fact a beautiful home, the ceilings were high and the living rooms rather spacious. Who know's how long this place has been abandoned for? 10-20 years?" Sadly, though, it really was in awful shape, which the photos and the author's comments illustrate: "The place was absolutely trashed, all the furniture was ripped up and tossed"; "The walls were rotting in mold"; "The upstairs bedrooms were blocked off with hoards of garbage and soggy clothes"; "Layers of filth, rust, soot and dust covered this upstairs kitchen".
• May 2013: "looks like it has been neglected for a while" (from a short Facebook discussion about it and the one next door)
• Early 2014: The property was for sale for $800,000. The house is described as "Old home not likely salvagable boarded up and not safe for entry. Being sold 'as is where is'." Here's the photo from the listing, pre-fence.

And then we come to... council stuff! All sorts of rezoning documents and discussion, which started in 2014 (there were so many that I don't think I've actually looked through them all yet; for now I just want to get this post up, but if I find anything else interesting later, I'll add an update). A developer purchased the property next door--1521 Elford (photos at the link), another early 1900s house; here's a photo from the 70s, with 1531 Elford just visible in the background, and there's a mention of its history here--and then bought this one too when it came on the market. In a letter included in that same link, the developer calls it "a boarded up house that has been used by squatters for many years"; they're saying it's beyond repair. Page 31 has a map of the site in its current state.

At a public hearing in April 2015 (I would have gone if I'd known about it!), many people expressed support for the new project--an apartment building--and the removal of this house. Councillor Pamela Madoff, though, didn't support it, as "The most sustainable building is one that has been repurposed. This is a unique situation as the Park has all the original buildings. [...] There could have been a mix of housing types with suites. The corner house might be moved, which gives her some comfort; but the houses are being moved out of Victoria so we are losing the architectural character of our neighbourhoods."

The Hallmark Heritage Society also opposes the redevelopment, saying, "There are two very nice houses that could be retained with additional development on the site. All tenants have been kicked out and the site is now vacant." (Whenever I've walked by, though, 1521 still seems occupied... I took one photo of it, below.)

However, the redevelopment was approved at the above-mentioned meeting in April (here's an interesting description of the meeting, where I learned that the architect for the project is a former Victoria mayor).

I took the above photos on two different days in June, and the one below the second week in July. Note the open window and the uncovered door--first steps toward demolition.

It's still there for now, with nothing really changed since this photo, so it might be a while before it's actually gone. I'll add an update to this post if I take any new pictures and/or find that it's been demolished. I've gotten really attached to this one for some reason--maybe it's the spookiness, its intriguing position shrouded by trees and backing onto the park, or just its visual interestingness. Whatever the reason, even though demolition does seem to make sense at this point, I'll be sad when it's gone.

2955 Glasgow Street, Victoria, BC

I might be the only who finds this interesting, but yesterday I was walking along and happened to pass by this house.

Not actually abandoned, but in the process of being demolished is close enough

Conveniently, it backed onto a parking lot, so I was able to get that view as well.

Today I walked by again, and... gone. Just a pile of wood/rubble. What are the odds that I would happen to walk by for the first time on the day before it was demolished?

A Centre for Jewish Life and Learning will soon be taking its place. And as much as I hate old buildings being demolished, I can acknowledge and accept that not every building is special/worth saving. This one was built in 1949, so it wasn't even that old. Here it is in April 2014, courtesy of Google Maps.

Nothing wrong with it, but nothing that makes it stand out either. Still, it was somebody's home--multiple people's, I'm sure--and I feel like that's enough to make it worthy of commemoration.