Marilyn Jones | Emily Carr Chronicler

In 1913, Emily Carr paid $900 for a plot of land on Victoria Avenue in Oak Bay, according to a story told by Edythe Hembroff in her biography Emily Carr: Untold Story (1978), On the plot of land, she had built a 12 by 20 foot cabin the following year, “nail by nail” at a cost of $150 with the help of “one old carpenter.”. According to Eve Lazarus, author of Sensational Victoria, assessment records…

In many cities around the world, the homes of famous artists and writers are saved and cherished. The artist Frida Kahlo’s “Blue House” in Mexico City, for example, is now a museum open to the public. As is Claude Monet’s home and garden in Giverny, France. In Victoria, Canada, you can visit Carr House, the birthplace and childhood home of beloved artist, Emily Carr, who painted scenes of Indigenous villages and the wild forests of…

Carr House, at 207 Government Street was built in 1863–64 for Richard and Emily Saunders Carr in James Bay. Designed in an Italianate Picturesque‑villa style by Wright & Sanders, it sat on four 1/2 acres in James Bay, then a fashionable neighbourhood in Victoria. The original address of the house was 44 Carr Street when Richard donated land to widen the road in front of his estate allowing two carriages to pass side-by-side on…