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1560 Gladstone Avenue (ex-128 North Chatham)
Built 1905
Designated 2010

Walter Bradley Revercomb

This 1½-storey house has many of the characteristics of the Edwardian Vernacular Arts & Crafts style which was popular in Victoria from about 1904 up to the First World War in 1914. The steeply-pitched front-gabled roof has a corbelled brick chimney and gabled dormers on each side. Whalebone bargeboards meet the level of the belt course which separates the symmetrical upper storey from the asymmetrical lower. There is brick cladding at the basement level. Shingles are used above this as well as in the gables. The middle band of the first storey is clad in double bevel siding. The lower storey has a triple window balanced by a recessed front corner entry porch. Windows are mostly double hung although most panes have been replaced with double glazing. The original paneled front door is partially glazed. The porch was partly filled in with a second entrance when the house was converted to a duplex in 1949. The concrete steps with their decorative wooden balustrade were likely also added at this time. It appears that elements of an earlier style may have been applied to the Edwardian era house. The shed-roofed dormer with its small coloured panes, the turned spindles on the front porch and the angled oriel window (note thicker window sills on shed dormer and oriel windows) are of an earlier Victorian Queen Anne style. The front of the property is enclosed by a low stone wall capped with a vintage twisted wire fence.

Bicycle repairer and manufacturer William H. Knight lived at 114 North Chatham while this house was built. A native of Cornwall, England, he married Jeannie Beatty in New Westminster in 1904. They lived here until 1908 and left Victoria by 1912.

Real estate and insurance agent John Frederick Belben (1866-1940) bought this house in 1909 and lived here until the early-1920s. Born in Newfoundland, John came to Victoria in 1895, and was a sail maker by trade, working for Jeune Bros for some years. In 1899 he married Elizabeth Parsons (1876-1920), also from Newfoundland. He left this house a year or two after Elizabeth’s death in 1920.

Engineer Thomas R. MacLeod lived here c.1926-30, and school teacher William A. Roper, in 1931.

By 1933 Frederick Phillip (1891-1960) and Berniece Estella (Wood, 1896-1975) Jeune were living here. They lived here until the late-1940s. Frederick was partner in Jeune Bros, a sail and tent awning business, in which his uncle Philip John Jeune (929 Caledonia, North Park) was also involved. Frederick was born in Victoria and was a bookkeeper when he married Berniece in 1917. She was born in Tamworth, ON. Frederick was a trustee of the Saanich school district from 1957-59 and was also a member of the Elk Lake Ratepayers’ Association.

Alexander and Sandra Nightingale bought this house by 1951 and lived here briefly. Alexander was a chauffeur with Jubilee Taxi.

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