Address: 656 Sumas Street
Built: 1908
1912 householder: Charles J. Deacon, house carpenter

This dwelling was built by Charles S. F. Deacon and his son Charles J. Deacon. They also built the Deacon family home on an adjacent lot at 603 Manchester Road. This house is testimony to Deacon's high quality work and an excellent example of the Edwardian-era colonial bungalow. It has a hipped bellcast roof with a front facing hipped dormer and exposed rafter tails under the eaves. It has a cutaway bay window on the front and half-width verandah, with an octagon box bay on the right side. The exterior of the house is well-kept and painted in Edwardian-era colours.

Between 1908 and 1912 Charles Deacon and his son Charles John built several houses in this part of the Burnside Gorge neighbourhood. In 1912, Charles John Deacon was 24 years old and was living here temporarily. City directories suggest that he returned to the Deacon family home on Manchester Road later that year. This house then became the home of Alfred W. Robinson, who worked for the Dominion Market Company, a wholesale and retail meat company. The company had butcher shops on Fort Street in Oak Bay, Gladstone Avenue in Fernwood and on Hillside Avenue near Quadra Street. Robinson, who was a butcher, may have worked at the Hillside store. Later occupants included John W. Stratton, a bartender at the Prince George Hotel (now the Rialto Hotel) on the corner of Douglas and Pandora, who lived here from 1913 to and 1915, and William K. Reynolds, who lived here from 1916 to 1920. Reynolds was a clerk with the Cameron Lumber Company on Garbally Road.

In the first half of the last century, the civic address of this house was 2915 Sumas Avenue. The house was renumbered as 656 Sumas Street sometime after 1952.

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