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2008 Chambers Street
Built 1907
Designated 2011

Arthur & Lucinda Pike
Builder: H.T. & H.J. Knott

The Knott family were prolific Victoria builders in the boom leading up to World War I. Herbert Knott’s name appears on at least 50 residential Building Permits, 1902-1913. In 1907 he acquired three adjacent lots on Chambers St, and built three very different houses, #2002, 2006 & 2008.

This house is classic Edwardian Vernacular, a style that was just becoming popular in Victoria and subsequently swept the city. The front-facing gable overhangs a shallow angled bay beside a recessed porch. The gable has heavy whalebone bargeboards, and features a slim box bay with small brackets and a shed roof. A tiny closet window with leaded panes breaks the gable symmetry. Art glass decorates the centre of the front bay and a hall window on the porch. Two dormers suggest a cross-gabled layout, but the one on the right is much larger and has two windows instead of one.

Decorative pierced brackets support the front bay, but an angled bay on the left side is cantilevered. (Many houses in this style also have brackets above the cutaway corners of the angled bay.)

The side-facing steps have low cheeks, leading up to a porch featuring two chamfered columns with decorated capitals.

The house has wide eaves, and still has its original chimney-pots, though it has lost its finials. Shingles cover the basement level, and likely are also under the later, composite shingles.

The Knotts built other houses in the Edwardian genre, many of them speculatively. This house has particularly strong similarities to 1508 Fernwood and 59 & 87 South Turner, which they built at about the same time.

An appropriate garage was added in 2008.

Arthur (1870-1934) and Lucinda Pike (Coles, 1879-1959) bought the house shortly after it was built and resided here until 1929. Both were from Newfoundland. Arthur’s occupations were fireman, engineer for the Yukon White Pass Company and marine engineer on the SS Tyee. He died at the age of 64 while employed as marine engineer for the Walker Lake Ice Plant near Ocean Falls.

From 1930-37 the house was owned by Victor Grange. His widowed mother Sarah, and two grown daughters, Florence a photographer and Phyllis a stenographer, lived with him. Victor was an ice cream maker at the Northwestern Creamery.

During the war years a number of widows were listed as occupants including Rachael Bunch, Annie Wilkins and Sarah Ward.

Everett (1896-1980) and Alice (Ryan, c.1903-1980) Brasch owned the house from 1953-80. Everett was born in Spokane, Washington and worked as a clerk at the Dockyard. Alice was born in England and was a stenographer for the Victoria Coal & Heating Company.

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