Monday, September 9, 2013

What is a Hemphill?

2739 Cambridge Street in Vancouver is known as the Hemphill House. Built in 1911 by Oliver Hemphill - one of the Hemphill brothers. The Hemphill brothers are responsible for many homes built in this city in the early decades of the 1900s. This house makes its first appearance in the city directories in 1912 but was listed as vacant.

The first owner of this house was an American born engineer by the name of Charles E. Pierce and his Quebec born wife, Amelie. This home remained in the Pierce family until 1977.


This is 2736 Cambridge. Robert Edgar Hemphill built this one as well as 2728 in 1911. I found another listing that states this home dates back to 1906 so I am not sure which one is right.

That is a problem with history. So much of it gets mixed up and related wrong. It is the same with family history - different family members have different stories about the past. 

Thomas Hemphill is listed as the builder of 2735 Cambridge. Perhaps they should have named the street Hemphill!

This is 2239 E. 7th. This Edwardian Classical style building is more common in the Mount Pleasant area. These are tall, formal houses with bell-cast hipped roofs, off-centre half porches and horizontal soffits with scroll-sawn brackets. The house next door has a dormer in its roof and this one probably did at one time as well.

Most of the lots on the north-east side of this street were owned by George C. Ossinger.

I want to thank Bob_2006 at flickr.com for the information on the Hemphill homes. The Grandview Heritage Group supplied the information on the home on E 7th. 

I hope you find the beauty around you.




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2 comments:

  1. Cool, that's my 2239 East 7th home.

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    1. Thanks for commenting. You may see me walking around the Drive one day.

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