17 the Fernwood neighborhood and near Beacon Hill Park. The city’s Japanese Community Association received a $300 prize for its float in a 1937 parade celebrating Victoria’s 75th anniversary and donated the money so the city could buy 1,013 cherry trees. In 1907, businessmen Yoshitaro Kishida and Hayato Takata built a tea house at Gorge Park. It featured a garden designed by Isabuo Kishida, Yoshitaro’s father, who would later design the Japanese gardens at Butchart Gardens and at Hatley Park in Colwood. Unfortunately the Takata family had to abandon the tea house when they and other Japanese Canadians were banished to internment camps during the Second World War. In their absence, residents looted and destroyed the tea house and garden. In recent years, Esquimalt township has rebuilt and expanded the historic garden and established the Esquimalt Gorge Park Pavilion, which features Japanese-inspired architecture. Opened in 2022, the pavilion hosts the Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society’s Japanese Cultural Fair each August (vncs.ca). Arhcitectural Marvels Victoria’s most prominent architectural masterpieces reflect the city’s rich British heritage. Chief among them are two signature buildings designed by Francis Mawson Rattenbury, a one-time prodigy whose life ended in high drama. Rattenbury (1867-1935) is best remembered for the Parliament Buildings and the Empress Hotel. He is equally remembered for how he died — at the hands of his young wife’s lover. By that time, Rattenbury’s career was in tatters. After his first marriage foundered, he turned to drink and then fell for a femme fatale, Alma Pakenham. But they became social pariahs and retreated to U.K., where Rattenbury’s alcoholism and depression worsened. His young wife had an affair with their 18 year old chauffeur, George Stoner, who inexplicably became jealous that Rattenbury would steal Alma back. Boom — Stoner bludgeoned Rattenbury to death with a mallet. Historian John Adams, a believer in the supernatural, says Rattenbury’s ghost haunts the Parliament Buildings and the Empress Hotel. Rattenbury came to Victoria in 1892 as a brash young architect with a sparse resume just as the B.C. government was holding an anonymous competition to design new Parliament Buildings to replace existing structures called the Birdcages. Rattenbury reportedly stretched the rules by signing his drawings “BC architect.” Despite the project costing nearly double its $500,000 budget, Rattenbury’s masterpiece opened in 1898 to rave reviews. He went on to design the Empress Hotel, the CPR Steamship Terminal, and the Crystal Garden. Hotel Fit for a Queen Like the city, the Empress was also named for Queen Victoria, in recognition of her title as Empress of India, even though she died two years before construction began. A chateau-style Edwardian building — incorporating Tudor, Gothic, and Baronial touches — the hotel opened in 1908 and was designated VISIT US Rotating exhibits Family-friendly activities Fan Tan Alley 10 Victoria, BC, Chinatown victoriachinatownmuseum.com Interpretive structures installed this February on Victoria’s Inner Harbour recount the city’s Indigenous and colonial histories. (Keith Norbury)
View this content as a flipbook by clicking here.