Enamoured with their new-to-them home, Robert Taylor and Janet Morningstar set out to learn a little more about the 1922 house. For the history buffs, that led to an in-depth look at the entire street.
“The real attraction of St. Patrick’s Street is this streetscape, it’s such a marvellous streetscape developed over about 70 years,” Taylor says. “Having an interest in history we researched our house and discovered the connections with all the other houses on the street. It became apparent there’s really an interesting social element as well as the architectural one.”
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Inspired by Stuart Stark’s book The B.C. Agricultural Association Exhibition Building at the Willows launched last December, this weekend, they introduced their An Architectural and Social History of St. Patrick Street with a garden party – apropos of some of the things learned about their little segment of the community.
“We realized we were looking at only one block. We had the luxury of going into much more detail than Stuart did,” Taylor says. “Now when we walk down the street we don’t just see a house.”
They know that in the home next door, two sons, aged 16 (he lied about that to get in) and 18 joined the infantry. One was killed and the other gassed and severely injured.
The architect of their own home, and another on the street, also went to war. “He was in the infantry and was shot and gassed and came back really shattered. It ruined his career. He only designed one more house which was ours,” Taylor says.
Those tales contrast with genteel garden parties of the time. That breadth of history is encompassed in the architecture as well, history unfolding with the range from Edwardian to the cozy storybook houses and the modern West Coast style.
They scoured the internet, newspapers and Oak Bay archives and crafted the book in about a year.
“When we assemble them all it really paints a marvellous image of life on the street,” Taylor said. “It really is enjoyable and pleasing work. It brings us closer to the neighbours, they’re thrilled to find out who was their builder and architect and history of their home.”
They plan to donate copies to the archives and library.
“We’re not professionals at this ,we don’t make a living selling books so we’ve decided to sell the books by donation,” Taylor says. The couple also plans to ensure all 22 neighbours get one.
“It gives people a fascinating history,” he says. “we look at [the neighbourhood] differently, we imagine almost 100 years ago what was happening then.”
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