Description of Historic Place

The French Residence is a two-storey Craftsman style wood-frame house situated on a sloping lot overlooking the city of Victoria in the Quadra area of Saanich.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of the French Residence is associated with its development within its neighbourhood context. Quadra, located directly north of the Victoria-Saanich border, is a large urban neighbourhood created from subdivisions of its early farms. Much of the south part of Quadra was originally W.F. Tolmie's Cloverdale Farm, just one of the large farms in the area cut from the forest by the 1850s. Tolmie was a prominent local surgeon, Hudson's Bay Company officer, politician and major early landowner in this area of Saanich. The Canadian Northern Pacific Railway ran a service from Victoria to Sidney through the area from 1915 to 1935; their spur line ran until 1990, and is now used as a regional trail.

The French Residence is valued for its excellent Craftsman Style architecture and detail. The quality of design, generosity of scale and proportion, and craftsmanship of this c.1913 house make it an excellent example of this architectural style in Saanich.

The house has a valued historic association with its first owner, Charles Hunt French, who played an important role in the Hudson's Bay Company as a purchasing agent, district manager for B.C., and one of the last HBC employees to hold the title of Chief Factor and Fur Trade Commissioner for the Dominion of Canada.

This house is representative of the type of residence that could be afforded, and the lifestyle attained, by high-level employees of the company that established and developed Victoria and western Canada.

Source: Heritage Planning Files, District of Saanich

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the French Residence include its:
- form, scale and massing
- unimpeded view of the city
- Craftsman Style architectural elements, such as masonry foundation and retaining walls, dark-stained shingle cladding, decorative brackets and half-timbering under multiple gables, verandah, wide overhanging eaves, roughcast stucco and half-timbering in the gables, large brick chimney on the rear wall, and leaded glass wood-sash windows