Description of Historic Place

1011 Burdett Avenue is a wood frame two-storey Carpenter Vernacular style residence located in Victoria's Fairfield neighbourhood.

Heritage Value

1011 Burdett Avenue, built in 1912, is valued for its architecture, its association with the pre-World War I building boom, and what its construction says about middle class values and changing attitudes toward heritage buildings.

It is as a rare example of a Carpenter Vernacular cottage, representative of the type of housing built by the emerging middle class in the late Victorian period, often builder's interpretations of the architect-designed homes in more affluent neighbourhoods. The original owner was Edmund Mainwaring Johnson, a government official who also ventured into real estate. Like many others, he sought to make money from increasing land prices during the pre-World War I building boom. With the collapse of the world lumber market in 1913, the bottom fell out of the housing market, and he resumed his career with the government. He died at the residence in 1920.

There is also historic value in the fact that this house has survived. This is evident in the fact that these small middle-class homes were once common and not valued in the same manner they are now, and were demolished and replaced by concrete apartments blocks in the 1970s and 1980s. This is a rare survivor of this trend, making it a valued historic place.

Sources: City of Victoria Planning Department

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage character of 1011 Burdett Avenue is defined by the following elements:
- characteristics of the Carpenter Vernacular style, including gabled roof with corbelling under eaves, fish scale shingles in peak of gable, bay window on main floor with corbelling above, decorative diagonal-boarded wood trim under bay, small entrance porch with turned spindles and carved spandrels overhead.
- form and pattern of fenestration
- corbelled brick chimney
- wood siding
- set back from street