1459 Vining Street

This house, built 1898-1901, is important as one of Victoria's finest surviving brick residences, and one of its best masonry examples of the Queen Anne style, in this case with Romanesque elements. It is also valued because its style is unique in the Victoria area: it is much more like an Eastern Canadian house that was called Bay-n-Gable style in Toronto. The house contributes to the continuity of the historic Vining streetscape, and its prominent roofline and chimneys are viewed between houses on nearby Belmont Avenue.

The house is significant as an example of the fine workmanship of owner and builder Thomas Donovan, one of Victoria's most accomplished masons, who worked both as a contractor and as foreman for the construction of the Inner Harbour Causeway in 1905. It is notable that Donovan, like many other builders in Fernwood and Victoria, married someone related to the building fraternity: his wife Jessie Terry was the daughter of Fernwood resident, bricklayer John Terry.