Heritage Register
Rockland

1502 Regents Place (1004 Belmont Av)

Built 1913
Heritage-Designated 1988

For: Arthur & Molly Gore

Architect: Samuel Maclure
Contractor: Nelson Benneck & Son

ARCHITECTURE:

This home is one of the earliest of a style that has been labelled the “Maclure bungalow.” Samuel Maclure was inspired by several sources in his design of the type. One was the ubiquitous Colonial Bungalow, a simple 1- or 1½-storey hipped-roof house long popular in Victoria. Another was Frank Lloyd Wright, who, although he was more influential for his severely horizontal Prairie School house plans, designed several landmark houses with dormered, steeply hipped roofs early in his career. Many of Maclure’s houses also have a pronounced Arts & Crafts flavour, and his bungalows are no exception.

The small house appears to be almost all roof, which is steeply pitched and bellcast. Its open eaves and exposed rafter tails are typically found on Craftsman houses, rather than British Arts & Crafts ones, but these features appeared on several similar Maclure houses prior to WWI. The house is almost symmetrical, with an entry portico with a matching roof and dormers on each side, and is clad in vertical board-and-batten siding that would become almost a Maclure trademark.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

The Gore family lived here almost 30 years. Arthur Sinclair Gore (1879-1976) was the son of William Sinclair Gore, BC Surveyor General in 1878-91 and 1898-1905. Arthur was born at Gore’s Landing, BC, named after his father. He was a draftsman in his earlier days, and worked for Sam Maclure for some time. When he lived here he was manager of the Electric Blue Print & Map Co. Arthur married Victoria-born Mary Lambert “Molly” Monteith (1884-1942) in 1909. He left the house after her death, married Helene Bullett, and moved to Vancouver.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

Maurice and Mabel Wood, a retired couple, resided here in the late-1940s. By 1951, retirees Arthur and Jean Duncan were living here.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• Map of Victoria's Heritage Register Properties

• Rockland History

• Rockland Heritage Register


• This Old House, Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume Three: Rockland, Burnside, Harris Green,
Hillside-Quadra, North Park & Oaklands