Looking for blog inspiration as we hit the official start of summer, I used “summer” as a keyword while searching through archival photos from the District of West Vancouver Archives collection, and came across a couple of gorgeous black and white photos from a Caulfeild home which still stands today: 4765 Pilot House Road. Built in 1924 as a summer house and known historically as “White Cottage”, this home had an exuberant flower garden in the past that immediately brought a smile to my face. One of the photos shows a man standing amongst the tall flowers, his face and upper body barely visible amongst them. The photographer took the photo from such a wonderful vantage point and really captured the feeling of being lost amongst all those beautiful flowers, as if in a floral jungle. It sparked my imagination and I wanted to share it with NSH readers.
Current garden trends on the North Shore seem to be rather restrained. Much of the manicuring I’ve been seeing is careful, the flowers often sparse, the plantings often trimmed into sharp corners and angles. Gone are the days where landscaping was commonly exuberant, with profusions of flowers, whether it was mad, cottage garden plantings, flowering trees and vines or masses of climbing roses. Along with the modern housing trend towards houses that often look like no one lives in them, much of modern landscaping seems to have taken a parallel, and in my humble opinion, less friendly turn. Front gardens often seem now to be a means to an end- a place to walk through simply to reach the front door without any discovery along the way.
One of my favourite areas on the North Shore which, historically had a number of glorious gardens, and still has a number of them, is Caulfeild in West Vancouver. Most of the front gardens are terraced on hillsides that face the ocean, and still carry on some of the garden traditions of its past.
The “Village” of Caulfeild was originally designed by Francis Caulfeild in 1899 to capture the feel of a traditional English village. The stone walls, meandering roads, landscaped gardens and local church and village green certainly succeeded in realising Caulfeild’s vision. And to further that old English village vibe, many of the residents in Caulfeild in its first few decades, who moved to West Vancouver from England, created gardens reminiscent of their homeland. These gardens were predominantly of the “Cottage Garden” style, which relied on natural materials, dense plantings, and a mixture of ornamental and edible plants in a somewhat informal setting. Common flowers were flowers that grew in tall spires such as delphiniums, hollyhocks and foxgloves. Other popular flowers include roses, lavender, hydrangea, sweetpeas, clematis and peonies, to name a few. It relied on a feeling of charm rather than grandeur in its design and often had colourful and rather exuberant plantings and the picture below at “White Cottage” captures this style to a tee. I can only imagine what this looked like in colour!
Photograph of a man, possibly Walter Adair, in the garden of the White Cottage, located at 4765 Pilot
House Road in Caulfeild. Caption accompanying original: "The White Cottage in early summer."
From an album created by Francis Wade Caulfeild or Wade Toby Caulfeild, ca. 1932.
Photograph courtesy of West Vancouver archives, #018.WVA.CAU
Walter Adair and his wife, Martha, were one of the early residents of this home. Walter died at age 84 two years after the above photo was taken.
*An interesting side note is that Walter was a caretaker at Stanley Park zoo in the 1920s of the monkey house and bird house.
Caption accompanying original: "The White Cottage in early summer."
From an album created by Francis Wade Caulfeild or Wade Toby Caulfeild, ca. 1932.
Photo courtesy of West Vancouver Archives, #017.WVA.CAU
Image from a magazine cover found on BHG.com shows the kind of magazine that was popular in the 1920s and 1930s to inspire home gardeners and commonly had beautiful garden illustrations on the front. Like the photos of White Cottage, this one features delphiniums prominently.
*Interesting sidenote, this issue featured the Charles Rennie Mackintosh house.
May 06, 1961 newspaper clipping from “The Province” shows the roofline has been altered and the entrance moved since the 1930s photographs were taken. It’s hard to tell if there is still a cottage garden at this point from this clipping as it’s not very high resolution, but the plantings do seem fairly dense. It’s also not summer yet in this photo, so it’s possible that there are many flowers here that are just not in bloom yet.
The charming little gate at the front that the For Sale sign is on, is still at the from of the property today and now has a sign on it saying “Greyrocks” as shown in the photo below.
Photo courtesy of Jenny Morgan
4765 Pilot House Rd today. Although more of a house than a cottage, after all this time it is still white! I wonder if the owners just like the brightness of a white house or are also honouring the original “White Cottage” name?
The front yard is still terraced with what looks like the original stone retaining walls and has a lot of lovely plantings. It’s not a wild cottage garden anymore but still carries charm in its layout. A driveway and concrete patio as well as a deck and modern windows have changed the look of the exterior but you can still see hints of the original home and garden, and it’s very similar to the 1960s photo of the home.
Photo courtesy of Jenny Morgan
Although not exactly a cottage garden, this front garden nearby 4765 Pilot House Rd on South Piccadilly has many rose bushes, flowers, trees, shrubs and plants densely planted all the way up the terraced property and gives a similar impression of joy and exuberance.
Photo courtesy of Jenny Morgan
Caulfeild is still full of beautiful and interesting gardens 120 years since the building of the area that defies the current, sparse planting trend, and I hope this continues! I wonder what it will look like in another 100?! Will gardens like these be a thing of the past or will the cottage garden be back for another round?
Sources: West Vancouver Archives, newspapers.com (The Province, The Daily World), wikipedia.com, bhg.com