Description du lieu patrimonial

St. Clare's Convent is a two-and-a-half storey house situated on the easternmost of three lots at the northwest corner of Napier Street and Semlin Drive in the Grandview neighbourhood of the City of Vancouver, British Columbia. The east and south sides of the property are enclosed by a granite wall with prominent urns and iron fencing.

Valeur patrimoniale

St. Clare's Convent is valued for its connection to the early settlement of the Grandview neighbourhood, its connection with developer John Smith Bain, its role in the establishment of the Roman Catholic and Italian communities in East Vancouver, and its gabled vernacular architecture with enclosing stone wall.

Unique in Vancouver, the Grandview neighbourhood developed in the first decades of the 20th century with a random mixture of small houses for working-class families, apartment buildings, and much larger homes on expansive properties with stone or concrete-block walls, including this house built by Frederick Broder Gibson in 1908 during the first wave of Grandview settlement. Other nearby larger homes are the William Miller house "Wilga" at 2025 Napier Street, immediately to the east (now the St. Francis of Assisi Church residence and chapel), the Copp Residence at the corner of Napier and Victoria, the J.J. Miller house "Kurrajong" at Napier and Salsbury, and the two large historic homes operated as Britannia Lodge on Victoria Drive between Napier and Parker streets.

St. Clare's Convent is valued for its connection with John Smith Bain (1865-1952), who purchased the house from Broder in 1911. Born in Scotland, Bain had been in Alaska during the gold rush before arriving in the Vancouver area around 1905. He quickly became involved in real-estate speculation and subdivided and sold acreages in North Vancouver and Burnaby. A religious and charitable man, Bain was treasurer of the Lord's Day Alliance in 1912 and helped incorporate the Vancouver Mission in 1914; in 1910 he donated a lot in Hastings Townsite to the Victorian Order of Nurses which they sold to raise money for their activities. Although not a Catholic, he became Friends with Father Boniface of the St. Francis of Assisi Church across the street and, in 1944, agreed to sell his property to the church for school and convent uses. Bain remained in the house until the sale was completed in 1945.

St. Clare's Convent is additionally valued for its role in the establishment of the Roman Catholic community in Grandview and its support of Italian-ancestry residents in the mid-20th century. Prior to the 1920s, the Italian community lived mainly in Strathcona. In 1925, the Franciscan Order purchased the property of speculator William Miller at 2025 Napier Street for use as a monastery. A campaign by local Catholics began in 1930 to create a Franciscan parish, which was established in 1936 with boundaries of Hastings Street, 1st Avenue, Commercial Drive and Templeton Drive. The new St. Francis of Assisi Church opened in 1938 and its priest, Father Boniface, looked to the J.S. Bain property to extend the church's services. The Sisters of Charity of the Immaculate Conception moved into the Bain house in 1946 and stayed until 1983. Around 1960, a large addition was built to the west of the house for the purposes of expanding bedroom and classroom areas. Subsequently, the former convent has been occupied by the Church of St. John of Shanghai.

St. Clare's Convent is also valued for its architecture and setting. A gabled vernacular 2 1/2-storey house with a prominent wrap-around verandah supported by grouped Tuscan columns on two facades, it is set behind a granite-block wall topped with iron fencing with intermediate and corner posts capped with large cast-concrete urns. The combination of the large property and house's size sets it apart from most of its neighbours, many of which are cottages on 25 and 33-foot lots, and connects it with the granite wall, extensive grounds, and restored monastery directly across the street to the east.

Éléments caractéristiques

The elements that define the heritage character of St. Clare's Convent are its:

- Location along Napier Street at the corner of Semlin Drive in the Grandview Woodland neighbourhood of Vancouver
- Placement at the easternmost corner of a three lot site
- Continuous use since 1908
- Residential form, scale and massing as expressed by its two and one-half storey height, front-gabled roof with hipped skirt, and wraparound verandah with main entry, set a full storey above grade
- Wood-frame construction
- Gabled vernacular design features including: vertical massing; front-gabled roof with hipped skirt, wide eaves, and closed soffits; prominent wrap-around verandah with hipped roof supported by Tuscan columns in pairs (triples at the corners) and original tongue-and-groove decking; the verandah extends across the front elevation, and wraps approximately one-third of the east elevation; cantilevered bays on the east and west elevations supported by knee brackets constructed of heavy timber and featuring intricate, ornate carvings; small hipped roof dormers on the west and east roof planes; and one and one-half storey kitchen addition attached to the rear of the main house volume with a small roof deck and porch
- original window openings, including the Palladian window in the front gable
- front door with sidelights in line with the front steps
- granite wall on south and east sides consisting of random-cut granite blocks with concrete capping topped and iron fencing; corner and gate posts are square cut granite with concrete capping, some with surviving cast-concrete urns. There is one gate on the east side and two on the south side.