Nichol House

Do you remember when I wrote on the Hycroft Manor? Well I was actually looking for another house at the time - this one you see here. The address I had gotten from an online source was 1402 McRae but it wasn't there. Another source I found had the address as 1402 the Crescent. There is no 1402 there either. But I happened to see a heritage plaque and when I went to read it I saw that it was the home I was looking I for. Would you like to see that the house number was?

No wonder I couldn't find it! Just for information sake, it is on the other side of McRae Avenue from the Hycroft Manor. This one is called the Nichol House.

Maclure and Fox built this Arts and Crafts style estate house in 1913 for Walter and Quita Nichol. At the time it was on the northern edge of Shaugnessy and was constructed on an escarpment that gave the home a sweeping view of the growing city below.

Walter Nichol was the owner of the Province newspaper from 1901 to 1923 and served as Lieutenant-Governor from 1920 to 1926.

William R. Wilson bought the property in 1924. He had made his fortune in mining.

In 1939 the Nichol House became the home of Leopold and Antoinette Bentley and their son Peter. (Another article I read said that the Bentleys bought this property in 1941) The Bentleys had fled Austria in 1938 to avoid the upcoming war and settled in Vancouver. Leopold and his brother, John Prentice, formed what was to become Canadian Forest Products (Canfor).

Peter Bentley followed in his father's footsteps and became head of CANFOR - one of Canada's largest forest products companies. He was also the third Chancellor for the University of Northern British Columbia from 2004 to mid 2007.

Bentley was also a director and is currently  an honorary director of the Bank of Montreal,  a member of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, a Chairman of Sierra Mountain Minerals Inc. (produces SierraSil) and a member of the board of directors of the Vancouver General Hospital  and the University of British Columbia Hospital Foundation. He also volunteers for numerous organizations.

In 1983 Peter Bentley was recognized for his role in manufacturing, business and finance in British Columbia and made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2005 his family was awarded a portion of US21.8 million dollars in restitution payments for the theft of the family's sugar refinery in Austria. The Bentley's also sold this home in 2005, not long after the death of Antoinette Bentley. She died before the restitution was awarded to the family and Peter declined to take any of the money although it was split among his five children.

There is an article online that tells the fascinating story of the Bentleys as well as a bit about another family I will be discussing in a future entry.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, Nichol House, Vancouver, CANFOR, Peter Bentley, the Province, Order of Canada, John Prentice

Rosemary

This gorgeous piece of real estate is in Shaugnessy and happens to be one of the largest estates there. It was built in 1915 for whiskey baron Edward Tulk and Tulk named it Rosemary after his daughter. (my father and I are quite close but he has never named an estate after me. I'll have to talk to him about  that!)

I wasn't able to find anything on Tulk on the Internet - I guess whiskey barons on that era kept a low profile - but there are other things to mention.

As you can see the home was built in the Tudor Revival style as an English Manor. It was designed by architects Maclure and Fox. (Samuel Maclure was involved in many notable projects including being a consultant to the legendary Butchart Gardens near Victoria. And Maclure was born in Sapperton New Westminster BC.)

Besides the Tulks, the Rosemary has had a few very interesting occupants. Including someone who once owned The Shannon- Austin Taylor who was the owner of the Bralorne gold mine.

For a while John W. Fordham Johnson, BC's future Lieutenant Governor, lived at this estate.

Johnson was born in England in 1866 and at the age of 22 he left to embark on a new life. He began working for a bank in Oregon and was there for ten years before he was transferred to Vancouver.

Once in Vancouver Johnson found opportunities. In 1900 he left the employ of the bank and went to work for BC Sugar Co., eventually becoming president of the company in 1920.

On August 1, 1931 John William Fordham Johnson was sworn in as Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia and he served the province for five years, until 1936 when his ill health forced him to retire to Vancouver. He died two years later.

The Order of the Convent of Our Lady of the Cenacle owned this estate from 1947 until 1994. They used it as a retreat.What a beautiful place to commune with God.

In the current owners took steps to protect the estate by entering into a Heritage Revitalization Agreement with the City. They have allowed the grounds to be subdivided into three parcels which will allow other buildings to be put on the grounds and still keep the manor as it always has been and will hopefully continue to be for years to come.

I thoroughly enjoy my strolls through Shaugnessy. Maybe I'm hoping that the wealth will rub off on me - that just breathing the same air, walking the same streets, looking at the same houses will entice money to come to me. The Lotto 649 is 12 million dollars tonight so here's hoping! If not I'm getting my fresh air, exercise and vitamin D.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, Rosemary, Vancouver, Edward Tulk, BC Sugar Co., Austin Taylor, Bralorne Gold Mine, John William Fordham Johnson

Hendry House

From 1912 to 1914 this Tudor Revival style home was built for the Hendry family. It was designed by architects Maclure and Fox.

John Hendry was born in Belledune, NB on January 20, 1842 as the second son of a family in the sawmill and flour milling business. After a short time running the family business after his father's death and travelling through the Western United States,  Hendry moved west to British Columbia in 1872.

He arrived to find the lumber industry in BC in a slump. For two years he worked as a log and timber surveyor and millwright for sawmills on the Puget Sound. IN 1874 Hendry was hired to work in the rebuilding of the Moodyville Sawmill which was on the north shore of the Burrrard Inlet. He also worked as nightshift superintendent before travelling to Winnipeg in 1875.

Hendry found Manitoba in an economic decline so he moved on to San Francisco. But BC enticed him back and during the winter of 1875-76 he built a sawmill in Nanaimo and one in New Westminster in 1876.

Like many of our city's pioneers, Hendry found the arrival of the railway in 1887 to be fortuitous. He promoted the New Westminster Southern Railway-NWSR- which was granted a federal charter in 1888. Hendry had served as on the city council from 1879-80 and he was elected mayor of New Westminster in 1889. H resigned the position in July however because he felt that his business involvement with the NWSR and his official duties would be in conflict.

There were problems shipping forest products from New Westminster. Hendry solved some of those when his company bought the Hastings Saw Mill in Vancouver in 1889. Since the mill was located between the Burrard Inlet and the CPR line it provided convenient access between land and sea.

The purchase of the mill gave way to a new company, The British Columbia Mills Timber and Trading Company - B.C. Mills of which Hendry was president and the manager of the mill, Richard Henry Alexander was the secretary. The company became quite successful and in the next ten years it employed 1,100 workers and had a sawing capacity of 400,000 board feet per day.

In 1902 BC Mills purchased the Moodyville Land and Saw Mills Company. They then began calling themselves  “the largest lumber manufacturing establishment in Western Canada or on the Pacific Coast, and one of the largest in the world.” The head office was moved to Vancouver and Hendry moved into a home in the West End in 1903.

Although timber was proving to be very prosperous for Hendry he also speculated on the railway and was involved in several business such as Nicola Valley Coal and Coke Company Limited and a director of the Hendry Land Company Limited, the British Columbia Sugar Refinery Limited, the Dundee Gold Mine Limited, and the West Shore and Northern Land Company Limited.

Hendry also made various trips over to England between 1910 and 12. During a visit to a nerve specialist in London he was advised to  slow down so Hendry sold some of his holdings though he did hang on to the Hastings and Moodyville mills which were the core of his lumber empire.

Hendry's daughter Aldyen Irene wed Eric Werge Hamber in the spring of 1912 in London. This event forced Hendry to cancel his passage on the Titanic. Isn't it weird how things work out?

The house that was built on Angus Drive features a porte cochere, or a porch with a covered entrance which protected visitors from the elements as they visited.

This private residence is a beautiful building and was a fitting home for one of British Columbia's first lumber barons.

I hope you find the beauty around you.


Karen Magill, John Hendry, Vancouver, Titanic, BC Mills, Angus Drive, CPR, Hastings Sawmill