Recently, while in Victoria, I had a chance to visit a house I could hardly afford but could hardly afford to miss. Ron Thom's Mayhew house has been up for sale for quite a while, reduced in price to the point of making some afraid that it would be torn done once bought up. This waterfront property in the Uplands neighborhood could easily fall pray to the extremely voracious McMansion fever sweeping through that area.
The house, unaltered save a few unfortunate interior finish changes, is ripe for a loving restoration. It has impeccable inner structure and spaciality; the proportion, the flow, it is all there - that ineffable feeling of a fantastic building that one can not summarize easily in words like you could attempt to do with Baker/Forrest House in West Vancouver or the Fraser House in Toronto.
Anyway, here are some more of my (inferior) photos - click to enlarge:
and the house comes with the archive
containing all correspondence, etc.:
containing all correspondence, etc.:
Neither my pictures nor the next set really do this building justice. Here are the contemporary photos and plan from Doug Shadbolt's book:
Clearer but much less compelling plan:
Vancouver Lights also did a post on Mayhew House - check it out.