CREDIT: Debra Brash, Victoria Times Colonist The ambience of a bygone era is preserved in the restored drawing room of the 11,000-square-foot mansion in Victoria’s Rocklands.

CREDIT: Debra Brash, Victoria Times Colonist The grand hall needed little retouching by the new owners.

Not everyone finds their way home by getting lost, but that’s what happened with Bob and Anita Frederickson. The couple was looking to downsize from their 3,500 square- foot home, and on their realtor’s advice, headed out to an open house in Victoria’s upscale Rockland district.

As they made their way up the drive to the open house, they were surprised to find it a mansion. A little puzzled, the couple poked around before phoning the realtor.

“We were at the wrong house,” says Bob, a neuropharmacologist, with a laugh. The mansion, however, was on the market, so the realtor whisked down to Rockland and opened the house to the Fredericksons. What they saw turned their downsizing plans into a counterspin.

“I walked into this room, and immediately realized this place had to be saved,” says Bob, standing in the house’s grand hall, The grand hall is on par with Craigdarroch Castle.

The house, built for lumber baron William James Macaulay and his family, was the second to be built in Rockland shortly after Victoria’s famed landmark. The grand hall is a masterpiece of Scottish baronial craftsmanship from Victoria’s most celebrated architectural era, with a towering stained glass window, untouched cedar paneling, massive fireplace and fir floors beneath a 24-foot high ceiling. The room is resplendent in intricately detailed wood finishing, including Ionic columns, carved transom screens and bead-trimmed arches.

And while Craigdarroch has served many purposes from a convalescent home to a military college, the Macaulay house has always remained a single-family home, quite a feat for a 113-year old edifice that stretches out more than 11,000 square feet. “We expected to find it broken into a tenement house, but it has been owned by only five families,” says Bob.

Discarding their downsizing plans, Anita and Bob purchased the home and started the house’s restoration and renovation at the foundations by having the home seismically upgraded. “We thought we were starting on a three-month renovation, but it turned into three years,” says Anita. And when Bob muses aloud, “How long was the painter here,” Anita laughs and says, “He became part of the family.”

The lot had been subdivided years earlier, altering road access to what had originally been the home’s back door, forcing a trade in function and traffic flow within the home. “That forced us to tweak the back staircase,” says building designer Archie Willie.

Willie allowed for a grander passageway by eliminating the turn-around landing in the back stairway, carefully dismantling the existing wood cladding and rebuilding it in a straight line. The added length was accommodated by expanding the house’s footprint.

Interior designer Laura Steele of NewSpace Interior Design recommended hand-printed Thibault wallpaper to complement the wood finishings. The covered porch features a stamped concrete base, arts and crafts detailing, and sandstone pillars drawn from the same Island quarry that supplied Craigdarroch’s stones.

“As much as possible, we wanted everything to be of the era,” says Bob. They filled the house with auction finds — elegant fir, cedar and mahogany furnishings sized on a grand scale. The kitchen’s fir floor had been covered with linoleum that was fixed with such a strong adhesive that the planks had to be lifted and taken outside for planing. Some of the kitchen’s original white lacquered cabinets, fitted with library pulls, are paired up with new cherry cabinetry finished in a modified shaker style and topped with granite counters in smoke, umber and russet hues. A spacious island serves as a comfortable centre for informal gatherings.

CREDIT: Debra Brash, Victoria Times Colonist The kitchen maintains its old-fashioned attractions — but with stainless steel and polished granite.

CREDIT: Debra Brash, Victoria Times Colonist The cedar-panelled walls rise 24 feet to the ceiling and a massive fireplace dominates the sitting area.

CREDIT: Debra Brash, Victoria Times Colonist Three tables are joined together to fill the vast and very formal dining room.

The new woods are complemented with the original fir floors, and a rustic antique table surrounded by bobtail-back Windsor chairs, all auction finds. The walls were wainscotted in a cream-coloured beadboard for a genteel country look. Aluminum windows were discarded and replaced with mullioned windows reminiscent of the house’s era.

A butler’s pantry, complete with extra dishwasher for quick cleanups after large gatherings, leads to a ballroom-sized dining room, fitted with three dining room sets from Chintz. “We couldn’t find a single table large enough for the room,” says Anita. An antique sideboard of German oak mirrors the style of the grand hall with fruited and beaded carving, arches and miniature ionic columns.

The walls are adorned with beaded Swarovski crystal sconces, salvaged from the basement. “I didn’t know what they were at first; they were coated in dust,” says Anita. “I almost threw them out.”

The house has many sitting rooms, each with its own distinctively-tiled fireplace ranging from watery blues to earthy umbers and ochres. The grand hall’s fireplace is bordered with a brandy-hued ceramic kick. And that’s only the first floor.

“It’s a labour of love for them,” says Willie, who is already planning the second-storey renovation.

finds. The walls were wainscotted in a cream-coloured beadboard for a genteel country look. Aluminum windows were discarded and replaced with mullioned windows reminiscent of the house’s era.

A butler’s pantry, complete with extra dishwasher for quick cleanups after large gatherings, leads to a ballroom-sized dining room, fitted with three dining-room sets from Chintz. “We couldn’t find a single table large enough for the room,” says Anita.

An antique sideboard of German oak mirrors the style of the grand hall with fruited and beaded carving, arches and miniature ionic columns.

The walls are adorned with beaded Swarovski crystal sconces, salvaged from the basement.

“I didn’t know what they were at first; they were coated in dust,” says Anita. “I almost threw them out.”

The house has many sitting rooms, each with its own distinctively tiled fireplace ranging from watery blues to earthy umbers and ochres. The grand hall’s fireplace is bordered with a brandy-hued ceramic kick. And that’s only the first floor.

“It’s a labour of love for them,” says Willie who is already planning the second-storey renovation.

© The Vancouver Sun 2005