Hubert Savage, Architect (7)

 

 

 

 

Bungalow designed by Hubert Savage on St. Charles Street, Victoria, seen recently

 

 

In the second half of 1913, Victoria's economy, after growing for the better part of two decades, entered a severe economic downturn. It would turn out to be a long one too, ultimately fundamentally reshaping the built environment. Prior to entering the downturn, there had been a great deal of speculative activity in real estate, with international capital buzzing around a relatively small city. Then, in what seemed like the blink of an eye, the boom lost steam and fizzled. For the many local architects working on residential projects when the recession hit, with robust connections to the real estate market, it would be a year or two before new commissions fully dried up. But the economic downturn was followed a year later by WW1, which also had a dampening effect on Victoria's small economy. In short order, the younger male part of the population began volunteering for service overseas, triggering a major out-migration that put added pressure on the local market. Hubert Savage himself tried to enlist, but was rejected for service on health grounds; fellow architects Percy Leonard James and Douglas James succeeded in enlisting and were eventually posted overseas.

 

 

The 103rd Regiment leaves Victoria by ship back in 1916: a major out-migration

 

Hubert Savage was an English-trained architect who decided to stay in Victoria while on a visit with the James family (he and fellow architect Douglas James had become friends in London). The local real estate market seemed buoyant enough to support another trained architect, so Hubert and Alys revised plans to go to New Zealand late in 1912. Savage picked up starter commissions relatively easily at the end of 1912, but almost certainly lacked the network of contacts to make it through the recession. In 1913 he had a few residential projects, including his own bungalow on Grange Road; but these contracts were then followed by a single project in 1914 - a bungalow at 520 St. Charles Street in Victoria (see photos above and below). After that, no further commissions show in the record until over a decade later. The style of dwelling he was then involved in designing - a country cottage structure with a roughcast exterior - differed markedly from the design of his own bungalow, which among other things was clad in drop siding milled from old-growth fir. Eleven years is a long time between commissions, which may imply that Savage had to work outside his profession in order to make a living. 

 

 

A large bungalow on a relatively compact lot, designed by Hubert Savage in 1914

 

 

The bungalow at 520 St. Charles Street still exists, a rather large structure on a fairly compact site (there are many scenic landscapes on the slopes of St. Charles, but this appears to be a standard subdivision lot). The bungalow sits high on a foundation that accommodates a full basement - high enough that there are twelve steps up to the verandah. Its gable-end faces the road. The bungalow shows an eclectic mix of design details (none Tudor-inspired) that includes knee braces (Craftsman), a dentil course (Classical), and plain pairs of substantial timber posts with large, elongated brackets. The roof also has what's known as a clipped or jerkin-head gable. Overall, the building is rather the opposite of Savage's home bungalow, which showed more-consistent design details and sits just above the ground it's built on. Turned sideways on its lot, to dramatize its length, and running along a natural ridge of bedrock, it makes a strong contrast with the more prosaic (if larger) St. Charles Street bungalow. 

 

After this bungalow in 1914, there's a break in the commissions that runs until about 1925. Then in 1928, Savage went into partnership with fellow architect and personal friend Percy Leonard James. Under their agreement, the commissions were individual, but the body of work was marketed collectively as James & Savage Architects. This partnership continued for some five years, after which the general lack of building activity that constituted the depression forced termination. During those five years of active partnership, however, the two principals were responsible for over sixty home designs - a not-inconsiderable output. Each of the grand structures they designed were entirely different and individual, but the partners also evolved a novel style of building that was similar for both - one that was better suited to the changed conditions in the post-war era and that was aimed at the substantially British local market that could afford architects. Some of the James and Savage buildings were quite grand (see Queenswood, below, for example) but others were more modest in scale (even among the wealthy set, there are degrees of richness). The novel style they adopted involved aspects of the traditional English vernacular cottage, which had been successfully popularized in England by Arts and Crafts architect C.F.A.Voysey. Despite their version of the cottage foregoing key features of Voysey's work (like buttresses, roofs run well out over the wall planes, and the use of slim metal knee braces) they incorporated a number of Voysey-like touches, from the use of roughcast cement as a finish, to the diamond (or other) shapes incised into shutters. Voysey favoured incised hearts in his cottages, which were usually large two-storey buildings; he rarely if ever had shuttered windows. To these features, James and Savage added rustic boards in the gable tips, coupled with a relatively steep roof that however were not projected over the wall planes. The moniker James & Savage Architects became quite famous, and it still sells houses in today's real estate market. 

 

 

Even in 1936, Savage enjoyed designing in a style with some Voysey touches

  

 

C.F.A.Voysey achieved a degree of fame for his unique style of dwelling, which adapted the traditional English cottage for modern use. He was also highly skilled at publicizing his own work. Self-publicity made him a leading figure of English Arts and Crafts architecture, especially as regards his presence in certain key publications, like The British Architect. He was also a favourite subject of The Studio magazine, which, with its high production values and wide distribution, influenced many other architects in Europe and North America. Voysey was interviewed by The Studio in its initial year of publication (1893), and had the following to say about principles of good design:

 

 

“It seems to me that to produce any satisfactory work of art, we must acquire a complete knowledge of our material, and be thorough masters of the craft to be employed in its production. Then, working always reasonably, with a sense of fitness, the result will be at least healthy, natural, and vital...The danger today lies in over-decoration; we lack simplicity and have forgotten repose, and so the relative value of beautiful things is confounded. In most modern drawing-rooms confusion is the first thing that strikes one. Nowhere is there breadth, dignity, repose, or true richness of effect, but a symbolism of money alone. Hoarding pretty things together is more often a sign of vanity and vainglory than of good taste."

 

 

Among other things - such as being a prolific all-around designer (wallpapers, clocks, furniture, etc.) - Voysey succeeded in shifting the English Arts and Crafts movement towards a more cottage-like style of building, one reflecting his interpretation of these modest traditional dwellings. In Voysey's hands, this resulted in structures with exaggeratedly steep roofs, large chimneys clad in roughcast cement, and eaves projected well out over walls so as to emphasize their sheltering function (he rightly assumed the appropriateness of this in a rainy climate like England's). These cottage-like residences were also quite low (eight-foot ceilings were Voysey's preference) a fact that strongly emphasized their horizontality. He also finished his buildings in roughcast cement. Voysey's popularity in England in the 1890s and 1900s translated into a vogue for his designs in Europe and across North America. In Canada too, or at least here in remote Victoria, BC, with its remarkable concentration of British-trained Arts and Crafts architects, it was pretty much inevitable that sooner or later Voysey-esque buildings would show up (especially given the widespread international circulation of magazines and journals among architects).

 

One such building erected in 1912, and designed by Arts and Crafts architect H. J. Rous Cullin at 1134 Dallas Road, merits a close look. This Old House - Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods (Fairfield) says this about it: "Designed in the British Arts and Crafts style, it is almost a literal quotation of the celebrated English architect C. F. A. Voysey's small bungalow type." I personally find the building constitutes somewhat of a caricature of the Voysey style, achieved by exaggerating the typifying features of a Voysey house to an extreme degree on a small footprint. Take the use of buttresses, for example: Voysey tended to use these to 'stiffen' his walls visually (typically, his buildings were spacious, two-storied structures) but he used them sparingly on his smaller homes, and they were far less likely to be paired corner buttresses. Paired buttresses on all corners of such a small building does amplify the effect, almost to the point of distortion. And the buttresses are also made to project to an extreme degree on a building that's essentially a storey high.

 

 

 

This structure on Dallas Road, from 1912, clearly caricatures Voysey's style 

  

 

There are six buttresses visible in the photo above, which on such a small house suggests an effort at conscious exaggeration. The steepness of the roof is likewise extreme, especially in light of the house's small footprint (see photo below). Nonetheless, the presence of such features do make for a remarkable package. It would have been magical to see it as it was initially, with its landscape intact. That landscape, designed by the talented William Westby (who laid out the sunken garden at Butchart's, as well as the gardens at the Crystal Pool) has not survived the more recent changes in land use.

 

 

High roof, compact dormers caricaturing Voysey

 

 

Other popular and talented local architects were also affected by the vogue for Voysey, like Samuel Maclure. A sincere admirer of Voysey's work, Maclure designed a number of colonial bungalows over the years that are immediately recognizable by their steep, over-scale roofs (for more on this topic, see my post in Century Bungalow entitled Victoria's Colonial Bungalow Fling (1), January 2022). However, he also designed other buildings, such as the one at 906 Linden Avenue (picture below) incorporating a medley of features typical of Voysey. About his relationship to Voysey, Martin Segger (The Buildings of Samuel Maclure: In Search of Appropriate Form) observes: "Maclure was not averse to producing residences which might be almost literal interpretations of the Voysey manner." Annesley Lodge in Hampstead, England (1896) is sometimes mentioned in comparison: it has the corner buttresses, roughcast cement walls, grouped windows, as well as the hipped roofs that turn upward at the edges (Maclure had long employed this exact roof configuration, which he evolved from local sources). The tall buttresses on 906 Linden are brought off in the sophisticated manner of an artist (note the course line, and the way the paired buttresses flare at the base). Also, while Voysey did sometimes employ Tudor-like half-timbers, he didn't on Annesley Lodge.

 

 

 

Not a copy, rather a likeness, of Voysey's work, on Linden Avenue, by Maclure

 

 

So why did Voysey prefer roughcast cement for his exteriors? The Architect and Building News (1927) sheds light on this:"Voysey used roughcast because he found that clients who came to him wanted inexpensive houses...A 9-in. brick wall, rough cast, was the cheapest weather-tight wall that could be built, and buttresses were introduced to restore to the wall the stiffness which it lacked. That stiffening by buttresses was probably not so much an actual constructive need, in an engineering sense, as an expression of the architect's sense of a solid and adequate construction." Voysey was also very particular about how the roughcast was used, which was to be in two coats: "...with well washed gravel or stone chips finished to a very rough surface...; the last coat to be mixed pebbles or stone chips and cement mixed together and applied with a spoon...The first coat to be scored over to form key for second coat." (This specification for roughcast cement appears in Voysey's handwriting.)

 

 

 

Perrycroft, a substantial cottage-like residence by C.F.A. Voysey, with corner buttresses 

 

 

It could be said that James & Savage creatively adapted several aspects of Voysey's style for the late twenties Victoria market. By dint of being skilled professionals, they didn't have to copy anyone. But both were sincere admirers of Voysey. In many instances, James & Savage houses were manifestly larger undertakings, set on choicer lots with unique possibilities, in desirable areas like Uplands or Beach Drive. Yet many of their cottage-style homes did tend to be more compact - at least than the norm for Tudor-revival houses in the pre-WW1 market. After the drag exerted by the war on Victoria's economy, the wealthy pretty much constituted whatever remained of the market for architect-designed homes. In any case, James & Savage delivered a product capable of holding the attention of wealthy people with the means to commission homes. And for the partnership, success in this market often involved versions of a Voysey-like cottage residence, one with a roughcast exterior, a steep roof that however didn't overhang the walls, a wide front door (often with strap hinges), and shuttered windows, often with cutout diamonds showing. The partners also liked to add some rustic boards to their gable tips. One example of this cottage-style is shown below, this one designed by P. L. James on Uplands Avenue. Savage tended to prefer diamond-paned leaded glass windows in his work (though not always, as Queenswood (see below) shows) while James tended more towards rectangular panes of leaded glass; James had a tendency to use rather more wood in the gable tips, Savage rather less, and especially for his smaller buildings. But the style of building was common, and they were both involved in marketing their product to wealthier clients.

 

 

Rustic wood decorating the gable tip, and modestly flared edges adorn a steep roof

 

My purpose in introducing this topic is to set the stage for more detailed consideration of several of Hubert Savage's smaller buildings. Savage expressed a lifelong interest in small-footprint buildings, which first showed in a home he designed in his own neighbourhood in 1927, at 1050 Jasmine Avenue. While not fully visible from the road nowadays, it still offers glimpses of the structure (this cottage was a direct precursor to Stranton Lodge, which Savage designed in 1934). 

 

 

 

Rustic wood in the gables, roof flared, strap hinges

 

I commented earlier, in Hubert Savage, Architect (2) that Stranton Lodge (1934) was a further instance where Savage got to site a building organically while protecting it from excessive grading or blasting during construction. Stranton Lodge perches on an elevated rock outcrop that lies on the southern edge of Knockan Hill Park (close to what is now the Burnside Road entrance). Savage, who enjoyed a personal friendship with the Halls (Thomas and Maude, both school teachers from England) designed Stranton Lodge expressly for them. They were already well-acquainted with the environs, as long-time residents of relatively nearby Loenholm Road, and both of them were active gardeners. They acquired a substantial site (just over eight acres) adjacent to Knockan Hill park and Savage designed a small cottage to go with this dramatic landscape. The lot faces south and because it's elevated, enjoys views of Portage Inlet - an inland waterway that's an arm of what's now called the Salish Sea. After the small cottage was built, the Halls developed "a showpiece garden" surrounding it, with the help of local nurseryman and garden designer Arthur Lahmer. Anchored by some thirteen pools as well as a bog garden, it hosts a number of truly remarkable trees. The Halls inhabited the cottage from 1934 on, Thomas passing away in 1961. Maude continued living at Stranton Lodge until 1973, at which time she sold the building and grounds to Saanich, on the understanding that the trees would be protected in perpetuity. 

 

 

Cows on Wilkinson Road at Carey, 1920, near Loenholm (Tom & Maude Hall fonds)

 

The Stranton Lodge property was ultimately inherited by Saanich Parks, who initially proposed to demolish the cottage and blast out the rock outcrop in order to offer parking (parks are classified according to whether they have parking, so this would have allowed Saanich Parks to identify Knockan Hill as a "sub-regional park"). In response to this preposterous idea, there arose a citizen-led protest opposed to demolition of Stranton Lodge, organized by a group called The Friends of Knockan Hill Park (led by the formidable Andrea Tetlow). I was a newly elected Saanich Councillor at the time, which gave me the opportunity to be involved in the heritage preservation issue. Saanich Parks was clear in stating that under no circumstances would they accept custody of a heritage building in a park, calling such use "unprecedented". The point of counter-attack thus became one of finding precedents to support the preservation of heritage buildings in parks. We didn't have far to look either, as the issue of heritage buildings in parks had arisen in other communities, including North Vancouver. So the preservation movement pretty much checkmated Saanich Parks by calling attention to the fact that heritage buildings in parks were semi-regular occurrences, ultimately managing to save a small cottage from destruction for parking. The cottage was restored with volunteer labour, then tenanted, and it appears, 35 years on, to still be flourishing.

 

 

Typical Savage features: rustic wood, diamond-paned glass, incised shutters

 

Stranton Lodge was built by Donald Mckinnon Lindsay, who also worked as a shipright at HMCS Dockyard. There are no pictures that I have access to of the cottage under construction, so the living artifact is all we have to work with. Fortunately, there's a rich trove of photos available through Saanich Archives, in the form of the Thomas and Maude Hall fonds. These photos show the building in its context, which made for a substantial garden.

 

 

Looking at Stranton Lodge from due west, showing its naturalistic siting

  

Thomas and Maude Hall surrounded by the garden they made

Maude Hall with Skookum, on the outcrop with a view

 

Pool sequence designed by local nurseryman Arthur Lahmer for Stranton Lodge

 

Stranton Lodge as it appeared in 1944 

 

Pools and rockery in spring at Stranton Lodge

 

I've taken a number of photographs of Stranton Lodge over the years, of which I will share just a couple that make details of the architecture more available. They are in colour, which offers a degree of tonal richness.

 

 

Savage trademarks: rustic wood in the gable tips, decorative S on the chimney

  

Wide front door, strap-hinges, diamond-paned glass

 

As I mentioned, Savage expressed a lifelong interest in these small-footprint buildings. Stranton Lodge is one example, but there are others too. One of the more famous still-existing small buildings is the Gamekeeper's Cottage of the once-famous Queenswood Estate, which sat off Arbutus Road on some 200 acres of land. Queenswood was designed in 1928 by Hubert Savage, then of James & Savage Architects. The Saanich Heritage Inventory has this to say about the site Queenswood was built on:

 

 

"Queenswood, a grand Tudor estate home, was built about 1928 for Lieutenant-Colonel A. A. Sharland and his wife, Eleanora. It was designed by Hubert Savage of James and Savage Architects and built by McGinty and Hume Contractors. On the south side of the property, Sharland commissioned the building of a game farm, stocked with deer and pheasant."

 

 

Queenswood, a garden estate home, designed for the Sharlands by Hubert Savage

"The Queenswood estate would eventually include, along with the house, a chauffeur’s quarters, squash and tennis courts, a greenhouse, a summer house, pergolas, a rockery and a rose garden. A gamekeeper’s cottage for Sharland’s game farm was contained in the acreage for breeding pheasants. The house was seriously damaged by fire in 1959 and demolished in 1962. Elements of the gardens were retained during the Sisters of St. Ann’s tenure, when the house site was redeveloped for their Queenswood House of Studies." Silent Sentinels, by Martin Segger, Times Colonist Islander, April 19, 2026.

 

 

Surviving gatepost for Queenswood, by Hubert Savage

  

The formal entry to Queenswood, half-timbered

 

"Florence Liliane (Lil) Hargreaves, the aristocratic wife of local architect L. W. Hargreaves, bought the surviving Gamekeeper's Cottage; they owned it from 1959 - 1968. Florence died while still living at the cottage in January 1968. The Sisters of St. Ann purchased the Queenswood estate and gamekeeper's cottage from the Hargreave's daughter Liliane Bingham..." Saanich Heritage Register, 2008

 

 

It's ironic that not only did Hubert Savage design the surviving Gamekeeper's Cottage, but that L. W. Hargreaves and his wife Liliane formed part of the social circle at the Savage bungalow (Hargreaves was also an Arts and Crafts architect who attended tennis parties held on the grass court behind the bungalow). The fact that they got to see out their days in a small Savage-designed cottage was thus rather poetic - they obviously enjoyed inhabiting the situation. 

 

 

Gamekeeper's Cottage, 2011: diamond-paned windows, rustic boards in the gable tips

 

The Gamekeeper's Cottage was typical of Savage's small buildings in the era: diamond-paned leaded-glass windows, rustic wood in the gable tips, a steep roof elevated at the edges with only minimal overhang (making it a cottage, as opposed to a bungalow). The roughcast walls would have been weather-tight too. Several more shots of the Gamekeeper's Cottage appear below.

 

 

Diamond-paned windows, rustic wood in the gable tips, slight upturn of the roof

 

Somewhat wizened by time, but substantially intact

 

Hubert Savage's smaller buildings were highly styled: diamond-paned glass, rustic boards

 

 

Savage continued to take an interest in small buildings for many years after the James and Savage partnership wrapped up in 1933. I present here several later examples, trusting that the photos illustrate Savage's design-consistency on smaller cottages. The one shown below, on St. David street in Oak Bay, has the roughcast finish, diamond-paned leaded glass, slightly upturned roof, rustic boards in the gable tips, and the incised diamonds, that suggest a bonafide Hubert Savage cottage (although its current paint job causes the design details to recede). 

 

 

Note the slightly upturned roof, diamond-paned windows and incised shutters

 

Typical Savage features in a small cottage residence at 3670 Quadra, ca 1938

 

There are other examples of Savage's small cottages that could be shown - and perhaps I will, if I get the chance to take photographs of them. But for now, this is as good a point as any to wind up the series of posts on Savage's Arts and Crafts buildings. As an architect, Savage had transitions to make in light of the transformation of houses from the complexities of how they were upon his arrival in Victoria, through the general impoverishing of styles that was a side-effect of the Great Depression, to the stripped simplicity of the modernism that grew up in the post-war world. Ultimately Hubert Savage opted for other ways of expressing himself, among other things by becoming an accomplished architect of school buildings, such as Mount View High School shown below. 

 

 

Mount View High School, by Hubert Savage, shown shortly after completion

 

Books for Looks:

 

The Life and Times of Victoria Architect P. Leonard James, by Rosemary James Cross, 2005.

Charles F. A. Voysey, Architect, by David Gebhardt, 1975. 

C F A Voysey, by Wendy Hitchmough, 1995.

Saanich Heritage Register, 2008, an online register of heritage buildings.

Silent Sentinels:Remnants of the Golden Age of Victoria's Garden Estates, by Martin Segger, April 19th, 2026, Times Colonist The Islander.

Building The West: Early Architects of British Columbia, compiled and edited by Donald Luxton, 2007.

The Buildings of Samuel Maclure: In Search of Appropriate Form, by Martin Segger, 1986. 

This Old House: Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods, a four-volume series published by the Victoria Heritage Foundation, available free online.

 

  

 

 

Hubert Savage, Architect (6)

 

 

 

The larger chimney (on the right) has a single stack that vents both fireplaces 

   

The smaller chimney once vented a heater to warm the rear of the bungalow

 

 

 

So why did Hubert Savage feel the need to create two sets of floor plans for his bungalow, the first dated 1933, the second 1951? The deep answer, I think, lies in the poor functioning of his original method of heating the building. Initially, and for a very long time thereafter, he relied on open fireplaces for heat in the living and dining rooms (these fireplaces may also have been intended to heat the kitchen too). Accordingly, both rooms have fireplaces that are vented through a single chimney, each with its own flue - see top photo above, where the combination chimney is on the right. Savage also had a second smaller chimney constructed that was framed into the walls of two bedrooms just off the central corridor. It was there to vent the gases given off by a small oil-burning stove (or paraffin heater) that was originally located in the hallway. This heater was there to warm the bedrooms and the bathroom, but we don't know if it actually worked well because, by 1988 when I bought the place, it was long gone and the chimney was inactive. In point of fact, I wasn't even aware that there was a second chimney when I bought Grange Road, but soon discovered it. One of my first acts upon arrival was to rip out the deep-pile-shag wall-to-wall carpeting covering the wooden floors in the three bedrooms and the hallway (yes deep-pile-shag was a fad for a short time, until it became evident how dysfunctional it really was). I took it out in order to return to the original tongue-and-groove fir flooring lying beneath it, which to that point had never been refinished. The adhesive binding holding the shag carpet's underlay to the floor proved hard to remove, while the tacking strips securing the edges of the wall-to-wall had damaged the wooden flooring somewhat. Also, the installation of the wall-to-wall came at the cost of the original quarter-round moulding that transitioned between the flooring and the high baseboards (once the carpet was out, the rooms felt quite bare without it). On the positive side, removing the deep-pile shag carpeting revealed that there had once been a heater in the hallway (marks of wear on the fir flooring were evidence of that use). Those marks led me to explore the possibility of there being a hidden chimney framed into the walls between the master and second bedrooms. A visit to the attic confirmed the presence of this second chimney (a fact I had not grasped when purchasing the house, perhaps because I would have had to venture quite far out into the back garden in order to see it). I also purchased the house without ever visiting the attic, for reasons discussed in my September 2023 post First Impressions at this blogspot.

 

Wall jog (right) containing the hidden chimney

Wall jog (left) disguising the second chimney

Second chimney that once vented the hallway heater

 

However effective the heater may or may not have been, the two main fireplaces were another matter entirely. The pair may always have been substandard as sources of heat, a fact that was brought home via my early enthusiasm for having decorative fires in the living room (this is a novel experience when you haven't previously had access to it). Although I didn't have to rely on these fireplaces for heat, I could tell that they weren't especially well-contrived for their function - indeed, in my limited experience, the fireplaces actually sent more heat up the chimney than they retained for the rooms. Fireplaces work by drawing oxygen over fuel, which requires a supply of air (fed by some draught) to achieve consistent burning; in turn, smoke, fumes and a good deal of heat head straight up the flue and into the airshed. The necessity of removing smoke-laden air while drawing in fresh air to feed the fire needs to be taken account of by design, especially in order to maximize the amount of heat that remains. Henry Saylor, in his informative Bungalows (1913), impresses on readers the necessity of ensuring "that the fireplace and its flue are built along scientifically correct lines - a fireplace that smokes is of less real practical value than a gas-log" (a gas-log being a gas-fuelled device that imitates the appearance of a real fire). In my experience, keeping a fire going in the living room hearth was involving, necessitating keeping the windows slightly ajar in order to ensure sufficient draught to keep the fire burning reliably. Yet in turn, if the windows were kept ajar, it caused the fire to burn that much more briskly, and as a result, to consume more fuel. And this enhanced burning also entailed sending more heat straight up the chimney. The alternative, which I found more distasteful, was to keep the windows closed, ensuring a fire that smouldered. 

 

The idea of sending heat up the chimney was not unusual in bungalows originating in Southern California (where the North American fad for them first took off) because there was no pressing need to consider heat retention in a place without real winter. In that milieu, the meaning of the fireplace - which was often quite grandly made, constituting a major emphasis in design - was primarily social, conceived as a place where family would gather and exchange stories around a sample of the primordial flame. But these fireplaces were decidedly not about keeping the bungalow warm.

 

 

"A mystery still clings to the hearth, and it still is the centre of the world." William Lethaby, Architecture, Mysticism and Myth, 1891.

 

"The focal point of the main living area is invariably the fireplace, usually located for maximum visibility and impact, and forming a kind of altar to the cult of of hearth and home that is fancifully associated with bungalow living." Paul Duchscherer, The Bungalow, America's Arts and Crafts Home, 1995.

 

 

This Southern California nonchalance towards heat retention would have fared less well in Victoria, which perhaps doesn't see snow accumulate every year, but where there is nonetheless a real winter most years and a corresponding need for sustained heat. So, while the heating function could be an afterthought in a temperate climate, bungalows built in locales further north, in places with real winters, typically came equipped with some form of central heating (usually involving a furnace housed in a basement). Remarkably, and rather naively in light of the reality, Savage's reliance on open fireplaces underestimated Victoria's winter severity (especially as his building was not insulated for many years, other than by the air within the cavity between the studs). I'm sure he was glad to have the rear heater to warm the back end of the house, but I'm also certain that it was often chilly in the principal rooms.  

 

 

"The greatest single factor making the Comfortable House comfortable was central heating." Alan Gowans, The Comfortable House. 

 

 

 

Most years see snow on the ground in Victoria, some years quite a bit

Picture of the shed with abundant snowfall around it in December 2022

 

 

It turns out, however, that the British are renowned for their quirky approaches to heating (especially in comparison to Canada, where central heating is the norm) preferring instead to under-heat buildings and offset the chill by bundling up. So Savage's misapprehension of heating needs may come down to the English tolerance for sub-optimal heating systems. Even today, English houses rarely take a systematic approach to heat, almost always warming only those rooms that are currently in use. For the most part, they make do with things as they are (see end notes for further reference and more discussion). 

 

 

Right, a fireplace that Savage relied on for heat in the living room, until 1951

 

 

So the word 'inadequate' pretty much summarizes my experience of the fireplaces: difficult to operate, consuming large quantities of wood if burning efficiently, and generating only marginal heat gain. I found myself caught in a dilemma: do I keep the windows ajar in order to ensure sufficient draft (thus consuming substantially more fuel) or close them and endure the predictable outcome of a smokey fire? Typically, I opted to feed the fire, as it by then was only occasional in nature. Even so, I found myself using the fireplace less frequently over time due to the inherent futility of the process. I came to realize that this would also have been an issue for the Savages, one that was more trenchant back in their heyday, and would only intensify with age.

 

 

Dining room fireplace, sharing a common chimney with the living room

 

 

As I learned from the reading I was doing to prepare for this series of posts, Savage wasn't the only English Arts and Crafts architect to struggle with heat. In fact, Philip Webb, the original Arts and Crafts architect and the designer of Red House for William Morris, back in 1860, created a dwelling that, while brilliant in many respects, was simply not constructed for solar gain and displayed, according to author Jan Marsh, "an almost medieval disregard for heating." It turns out its fireplaces were too small for the intended impact, and they smoked too, which was "a serious design flaw". "In 1861 the main chimneys had to be heightened in order to remedy the problem." (William Morris and Red House, by Jan Marsh, 2005). Another famous Arts and Crafts architect, C. F. A. Voysey, also relied on fireplaces to provide heat in his buildings. He held to this idea based on an instinctive rejection of the whole notion of central heat, which he famously denounced as involving various "demoniacal contrivances" like pipes, radiators and a furnace. As a result, he opted to heat his buildings with fireplaces, but understood their scientific design sufficiently to build in special 'draught lines' to enable sufficient airflow to sustain lively combustion ("fireplaces fed with air through small tubes direct from outside, so as to avoid draughts under doors and consequent cold feet"). Savage, on the other hand, may not have comprehended the science behind fireplace design very well, and simply trusted that his mason knew how to build them properly. In any event, after many years Savage gave up on relying on the fireplaces, and began thinking more seriously about how to centrally heat the building (which he was presumably already doing in the upper-end houses he designed for wealthy clients, which would have had basements).

 

 

Classy home on Beach Drive designed by Savage in 1929, for W.S. Mitchell

 

 

In the later 1990s, I reached out to Joy and Al Barth for background on the house - Joy was the Savages' only child, and she and Al were kind enough to respond to my efforts to restore her father's handiwork. Among the many gifts they sent me were two annotated copies of the floor plan of the house, which I didn't immediately grasp the significance of. But poring over them, I was grateful to garner more information about the original layout and features of the bungalow (it was from close reading of these plans that I learned that there had once been a built-in radio in the alcove in the living room, as well as a sideboard in the dining room). Originally I immersed myself in these details, but one day I chanced to notice that the two plans explored entirely different visions for heat supply in the building (which turned out to be the reason there were two of them). Savage initially thought of introducing a system of hot-water-radiators to centrally heat the bungalow. The 1933 plan, I came to realize, shows the proposed placement of the hot-water-fed radiators, although it wasn't ever carried out. 

 

"Around 1930 many families removed the old systems and changed over to hot water radiator systems..." The Life and Times of Victoria Architect P. Leonard James, by Rosemary James Cross, 2005.

 

It isn't clear just where Savage would have put the furnace to heat the water for the radiators either, which would have been challenging as he lacked a basement. And selecting a fuel type would only have complicated matters further: coal, for example, would have required dedicated space to store the fuel (typically, a separate room) and not far from the furnace either, while fuel oil would have required a bulky storage tank placed somewhere highly visible at the back of the building, so somewhat more flexible than coal, but still highly intrusive. And both fuel types would have necessitated access from some sort of driveway to enable deliveries, a critical factor that couldn't easily be accommodated with the existing infrastructure. Perhaps these stumbling blocks were why the 1933 plan wasn't acted on? I must admit I didn't twig onto the meaning of the two plans until my eyes came to rest on the first note on the 1933 version (picture below). 

 

 

 

Detail from 1933 plan, "note: proposed h. water radiators shown thus"

1951 plan indicating proposed locations to install electric wall heaters

 

The 1951 plan (photo above) lays out prospective locations for a series of individual electric wall heaters, that are to be framed into the rooms and hallways of the bungalow (this time the plan was carried out, in relatively short order). But even that plan, as executed, was modified to some extent, as several of those wall heaters wound up located differently than indicated on the initial plan (the living room wall heater, for example, was ultimately installed next to the fireplace). It's evident that the 1951 plan resolved the issues with central heat by means of a strategy that would warm principally those areas that were in active use. I could speculate that Savage, who by this time was an accomplished designer of public schools (including Tolmie, Duncan High, Courtney Senior High, and with Eric Clarkson, Mount View High School) had familiarized himself with Wesix electrical wall heaters from his experience in designing these buildings, then applied the technology in his own home.  

 

 

Wesix electric wall-heater (on the left) in corridor 

 

Master bedroom, Wesix three-bar wall-heating unit (lower right)

Kitchen unit (right, partially obscured), three-bar Wesix electrical wall-heater

These wall heaters, manufactured in San Francisco, Seattle, and Los Angeles (among other locations) by the Wesix Heater Company, were very popular throughout the Pacific Northwest, especially in the 1940s and 1950s. Known for durability and innovative design, in the post-war boom they appeared in many homes where they offered safe, clean, efficient room-by-room heating. Marketed under the brand of "Wiredheat", they were frequently used to replace older, wood-based heating systems. A full-page ad in the Pacific Northwest Book of Homes for Wesix wall heaters (1949) depicts a woman lounging comfortably in an armchair beside one, with copy declaring that: 

 

"Wesix Wiredheat has brought happiness to many thousands of homes in the Pacific Northwest where natural resources and man's ingenuity have combined to place the luxury of electric heating within the reach of every homeowner. For it indeed is a luxury to have instant radiant and circulating warm air at your fingertip command, without waiting for the entire house to warm up. And there are savings too! Wesix Wiredheat is  safe...clean...and famous for long, trouble-free operation. Your dealer or neighbor can testify to that."

 

 

Of course, Hubert and Alys may have acted on the problem of heat generation long before discovering their ultimate solution. A simple electrical system comprised of knob-and-tube circuits had been wired into the bungalow when it was built. This power source supplied overhead lights (or wall sconces) and a number of electrical outlets in each room. Practically from the launch of these residential wiring systems, there were commercial devices on the market that allowed people to supplement their heat supply. One type of early unit for space-heating came with light-bulb-like screw-ins that allowed it to be popped directly into light sockets (see picture below); I don't know that the Savages ever used this sort of technology, but it was available early in the history of domestic wiring (I would have had reservations myself).

 

 

These space heaters screw in like light bulbs, employing the same socket

 

 

There were other options that soon came available too, based on using electrical power to warm space (but more safely engineered than the heaters shown above). Many brands of space-heating device were then marketed, some quite stylish. The images below show examples of Wesix portable space heaters dating to different eras. Again, I have no idea whether or not the Savages ever used such technologies to raise their comfort level, but they were readily available and the Savages had the electrical circuits that could make it happen (see photos below).

 

 

 

Deco-era vintage aluminum space-heating unit manufactured by Wesix

 

 

1935 Wesix space heater 'quickly warms any small room'

Wesix space-heating unit, portable, three bars, 240 volts: very powerful

 

 

There are other things Savage did in order to improve the bungalow's capacity for heat retention, including at some point having fibrous insulation blown into the walls from the outside. The initial theory of frame construction was that the air pockets within the walls were deemed to have insulation value. A second stage in what became a sharp progression involved hiking this value by filling the cavity with a substance like cellulose, which I realized had at some point been done at the Savage bungalow. I became aware of this while examining the building after the initial repairs prior to a full repainting, when I discovered that a series of circular holes, at regular intervals, had at some point been drilled into the drop-siding. These regular holes were obviously access points through which insulation could be pumped into the walls, after which they had been carefully filled with wooden plugs. Given how tidy the work had been, I simply assumed that Savage must have overseen the job (I didn't know at that time how early he had passed away). I subsequently learned that the energy-efficiency of buildings only became a pressing issue as a result of the energy crisis of the early seventies. So, it may have been the building contractor who actually did the job that took so much care in the doing. 

 

At some earlier point too, perhaps back in the 1940s, Zonolite insulation had been added between the ceiling joists in the attic, in order to maximize heat retention in the rooms below (this fact is revealed on the 1951 floor plan). Zonolite is a brand-name for vermiculite originating at the Libby mine in Montana, USA. It was marketed in Canada under that brand name and was widely used for insulation in attics (and it is also very likely contaminated with asbestos fibre, which was interspersed with the seams of vermiculite). Later someone also added bats of fibreglass insulation above the vermiculite, which is pretty much where things stand now.

 

 

Zonolite (vermiculite) insulation visible between ceiling joists in the attic

 

 

One additional note on the heating system I found in place when I moved in, which it should be said still operates flawlessly: the Wesix wall heaters are of such remarkably high quality that they are surely the next best thing to a real furnace for heating a building. Fabricated like a true capital good - that is, made to last a very long time - they simply do not readily break down. Their chief vulnerability (apart from being powerful, which sets them apart from today's passive baseboard heating) is that if the power happens to go out in a winter storm, you don't have a way to heat the building (I guess you could resort to using those fireplaces, if you keep a supply of wood). I didn't encounter this problem though in over 35 years living there.

 

When I first landed at Grange Road in 1988, there was an entire wall in the utility area that was given over to meters whose sole function, I learned, was to average the power supply drawn for particular uses. These meters served to apportion the severely constrained 60-amp service, in order that the full range of possible high-intensity uses could function to some degree. Among my first acts in the new house was thus upgrading the power supply to 100-amp service, which involved, among other things, a new and larger panel, with more potential circuits and no physical fuses (remember those - you had to actually replace them if they were tripped). This upgrading of the power supply also made it possible to dispense with the wall of meters entirely, because there was now sufficient supply to support all uses, including the intense wall-heaters. As a result of this enlarged panel, I had room for additional circuits too, which either facilitated new uses (like overhead electric lighting and power outlets in the attic) or replaced existing knob-and-tube circuits where new high-output uses would otherwise have been loaded onto old circuits (this is the most common cause of failure of knob-and-tube wiring). My initial electrician was Eddy Kop Senior, who upon viewing the old-fashioned wall of meters, said: "you don't see that much nowadays - but if we go to 100 amp service, you can get rid of them all". It lead me to wonder why this had this not been done already? The answer I think lies in the fact that when the Wesix wall heaters were installed in the early 50s, 60-amp service was still the residential norm. Hubert Savage would have overseen their installation, before he retired from architecture in 1954. After he passed on the next year, his wife Alys occupied the bungalow for several more decades - thus likely overseeing certain improvements, such as the deep-pile shag wall-to-wall in the back of the house and the comprehensive 'remuddling' of the kitchen. When Alys herself drew near the end of her time in the house, she sold the bungalow to Pat Brown and her husband at some point in the mid-1970s (see my post The Romance Of Possibility, in Century Bungalow, August 2016 for further discussion).

 

Another thing worth mentioning here: I've had the wall heaters inspected thoroughly by three professional electricians, all of them seasoned journeymen: Eddy Kop Senior, Monty Gill, and David McLellan. Each raved about the installation, the quality of the wiring and the durability of the heating units themselves, even about the quality of carpentry that went into the installation. This all had to have been done while Savage was still practising architecture and retained his access to first-class carpentry skills, because one would never know that those heaters hadn't come with the house (I know that's an impossibility given it was built in 1913 and the heaters only went in in the early 50s, but the quality of the installation makes it feel true). I was very satisfied to have this fifties heating system during my many years of dwelling there (see next photo).

 

 

Four-bar Wesix electrical wall heater in the living room shows seamless installation

 

 

Books for Looks

 

Readers with access to The Globe And Mail online might want to check out the article I Thought Canada Was Cold. And Then I Moved To England, by Barry Rueger, 2025. Speaking to the quirkiness of British heating systems, it suggests the following: "the British find their greatest pride in being cold"; "I had of course heard the jokes about slippers and cardigans, and about the British obsession with not spending money on heat. What I now know is that these weren't jokes - they were the very foundations of a national culture." "What I've learned since arriving in Britain is that yes, everyone wears layers of clothing indoors, and that yes, likely only one room is heated at any time." "Like a lot of Canadians, we've spent many evenings watching programs like The Crown and Downton Abbey. In both shows the most memorable set pieces show people in deep discussion beside a roaring fireplace. What I now realize is that 10 feet away from the hearth people were likely shivering frigidly." "Because the heating systems in British homes are so spartan, almost every single room in the house - including the bathroom - has a small, plugged-in, electric heater 'to take the edge off' the cold. These inefficient little boxes do warm things up a bit, but are an expensive solution."

 

William Morris and Red House, Jan Marsh, 2005.

Bungalows, Henry Saylor, 1913.

W. R. Lethaby: His Life And Work, Godfrey Rubens, 1986.

 

Pacific Northwest Book Of Homes, 1949, full page advertisement for Wesix wall-heaters on page 7.

 

The Bungalow, America's Arts and Crafts Home, Paul Duchscherer, 1995. 

 

The Life and Times of Victoria Architect P. Leonard James, by Rosemary James Cross, 2005. 

 

Charles F. A. Voysey, Architect, by David Gebhard, 1975.