B&B; Sampler, From Victorian to Avant-Garde

VICTORIA, Canada — Set amid the lush forests and totem poles on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, Victoria seems more British than London. With staunch devotion here behind the Tweed Curtain, old country traditions are carried on: croquet and cricket on the lawns, stout walking shoes for seaside constitutionals and, in the streets, red double-deckers that rattle past shops stocked with Wedgwood, tartans and Irish linen.

Victorians also have the British love of bed and breakfast inns, and have created a host of cozy establishments, ranging from classic antique stuffed mansions to contemporary California-style small hotels conveniently located around the Inner Harbor area of downtown Victoria and throughout the lush surrounding West Coast rain forest.

Beneath a canopy of chestnut trees, we followed a long driveway sloping toward a half-timbered Tudor mansion set on the shore of Lake Quamichan. Horses in a neighboring field glanced up lazily at our passing, the ambience and setting on this crisp sunny day weaving a nostalgic atmosphere as though we were arriving for a visit at a friend’s rambling English country manor in the 1920s.

Under the portico’s stained-glass skylight, Judy Oliver welcomed us to her home and into a cultural experience we never expected here in the countryside near the small town of Duncan, 38 miles north of Victoria on the scenic Malahat Drive.

From the moment we stepped across the threshold of Grove Hall Estate and slipped our feet into satin Oriental slippers, we were swept up in a voyage through exotic Asia in the lavish antiques and personal treasures collected by Judy and her husband, Capt. Frank Oliver, during their years working in Asia and the Middle East--he as a Coast Guard attache for the American Embassy, she as a Canadian trained nurse.

A scowling statue of Garuda, the Indonesian god of flight, guards the foyer as the flames from an entryway fireplace glitter off a brass temple gong. Across a vast expanse of deep Oriental rugs in the living room stands an antique Chinese opium bed, upon whose deep red velvet mattress the wife of a wealthy merchant once reclined as her servants refilled her pipe.

Though the house is stocked with the stuff of museums, Oliver is a warm and informal hostess and urges guests to poke through all the inviting and mysterious corners of her home. Sipping tea and nibbling dainties on the veranda under the wide-eyed gaze of Natasha and dour-looking Winston--a pair of Himalayan cats--she talked enthusiastically about her 18 years living abroad in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Borneo, Saudi Arabia and Singapore, where in 1974 she met her future husband.

On a visit to Vancouver Island a decade later, en route to resettling in Los Angeles, she was told by a real estate friend of a unique property for sale on 17 acres of lakefront. Though it was badly neglected and completely overgrown, Judy at once fell in love with Grove Hall. She laughed when recalling the look on her husband’s face when he first saw the house she had bought. “Get rid of it!” was all he said.

Originally designed in 1906 as a bungalow, Grove Hall was expanded into a 22-room mansion in 1912 for its second owner, a former Hong Kong trader.

Each of the three guest rooms reached via the grand baronial staircase is lavishly decorated with the antiques, furnishings and artwork of a different Asian country. The biggest of the rooms, the Indonesian suite, has its own sitting room, bath and balcony.

On the walls are Balinese paintings, traditional Indonesian shadow puppets and batik textiles. From the cozy depths of a great round rattan chair in a bay window nook you can watch the birds on the lake.

The dramatic antique centerpiece of the Singapore Room is an ornately carved and gilded Chinese wedding bed of solid teak. The light and airy twin-bedded Siamese Room has a feel of tropical Bangkok with its wicker furnishings and a balcony overlooking the garden.

It shares with the Singapore Room a spacious bathroom with a free-standing claw-foot tub (the toilet is the classy but temperamental 80-year-old original with brass fixtures--there’s a special knack to flushing this old-timer). All rooms have their original tiled fireplaces.

Returning to Grove Hall after a late dinner in Victoria, we glimpsed the inviting and comfortable English gentleman’s domain of the Billiard Room. The evening, we decided, would be perfectly completed with a game on the full-sized 1920s billiard table with carved wooden legs as thick as tree trunks. Our hostess tiptoed in with nightcaps and added to the Old World atmosphere by winding up a Bombay gramophone to play a few oldies like Harry James’ “But Not For Me.”

An English breakfast of bacon and eggs is served in the elegant, wood-paneled dining room. Early morning is a peaceful time to stroll down past the hazelnut trees toward the lake, where there’s a boat shed and a tiny pier with great views of herons, eagles, geese, swans and noisy kingfishers that crowd a small island sanctuary.

The grounds are great for exploring: tennis courts for guests, an old rose arbor en route to the abandoned servants’ building and Judy Oliver’s Secret Garden with its cobbled paths and birdbath--hints of extensive English gardens once tended by a dozen gardeners. Rooms at Grove Hall Estate start at about $90 U.S. double, including breakfast.

Back in downtown Victoria is another of our favorite inns--the Beaconsfield. A decanter of sherry on an antique trolley greeted us in the library shortly after our arrival. A fire in the hearth banished a slight evening chill as we settled into the ambience of an Edwardian men’s club.

Chimes from the grandfather clock on the upstairs landing softly rang out each quarter hour, but here within the Beaconsfield, a few blocks from the Parliament Buildings, time had come to a standstill in the early days of the century.

The Beaconsfield was built in 1905 for a local millionaire’s daughter as a wedding gift. Decrepit and boarded up in the early 1980s, it was bought and restored by a soft-spoken lawyer named Bill McKechnie and turned into Victoria’s first bed and breakfast inn.

When it opened its doors in 1984, the authentic reconstruction won the Victoria Heritage Society’s Hallmark Award for excellence. McKechnie, a self-confessed romantic, named the inn after a lover’s retreat in London frequented by King Edward VII for his legendary illicit liaisons.

The style of the Edwardian era, spanning the turn of the century to the onset of World War I, was one of simplicity and restraint--a reaction to the turrets, gingerbread trim and cluttered parlors of the Victorian era.

Our favorite room is the Rosebud Suite, its namesake a row of pink-stained glass rosebuds bordering the top of the bay windows. A pair of wing chairs face a wood-burning fireplace, and in the corner stands a writing table alongside a canopied brass bed.

The Blue Room is just that, the Veranda Room on the ground floor faces a private patio, and occupying the entire top floor is The Attic, with its own Jacuzzi in the suite. Lillie’s Room honors Edward VII’s most famous mistress, Lillie Langtry, and has a spectacular rare Old English tub-and-shower combination encased in wood.

Guests are welcomed with tea on arrival and invited to mingle during sherry hour, which commences at 5:30. Also included in the $90-to-$180 room rate is full breakfast--an entree such as Eggs Beaconsfield or Florentine, home-baked muffins, scones and a goblet of squeezed orange juice--served in the kitchen of the airy Breakfast Room, where seating is at a single long table.

Another of McKechnie’s inns--the popular Abigail’s--is a European-style small hotel tucked at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac in downtown Victoria. “We aimed for a more feminine ambience in contrast to the air of masculinity at the Beaconsfield,” McKechnie explained.

The Canterbury Bell Suite on the third floor boasts a lavish canopy bed facing an Italian marble fireplace. A chaise lounge sits before vaulted stained-glass windows where guests can look out over the neighborhood. To one side of a four-poster bed and overstuffed leather love seat by the fireplace in the Foxglove Room, a double Jacuzzi bathtub occupies one corner of an enormous bathroom.

A full breakfast in the main floor Breakfast Room is included with the room rate, but for an extra $30 you can indulge in the Celebration Package. On arrival, guests are greeted with a split of champagne, Belgian chocolates and roses.

Breakfast is brought to the room in a wicker picnic basket bearing a piccolo of champagne, fresh baked goods of the day, an egg dish, squeezed orange juice and coffee. The chef also prepares gourmet picnics for day trips.

At 6 p.m., guests are invited to mingle in the library for social hour when Australian port, cheese plates and other appetizers are served before a crackling fire. Rates range from $90 to $180 plus tax.

Neither Abigail’s, the Beaconsfield nor McKechnie’s latest bed and breakfast inn, Humboldt House, has a telephone, TV or radio.

Quaint Victorian Humboldt House opened in 1989 as an intimate getaway with an emphasis on privacy. All three spacious suites are on the same floor and feature an open Jacuzzi that faces the fireplace.

The decor of The Oriental Suite reflects the British fascination with the Far East during the Victorian era: lining the walls is a row of old Chinese money. Breakfast baskets are delivered in the morning via a breakfast nook so that instead of fumbling for bathrobes, guest find their breakfasts placed behind a small door without seeing a soul--the ideal solution for those who enjoy the homey comfort of inns but abhor dining room conversation over breakfast.

“This is the place to take your wife or girlfriend and disappear,” said McKechnie with a twinkle in his eye. Rates range from $160 to $180 plus tax.

Lance Olsen is the artist/innkeeper of Holland House, a chic bed and breakfast inn that bills itself “Victoria’s fine arts hotel.” From the moment we stepped inside the doorway of the trim white apartment house, we felt as though we’d entered a gallery. But not the kind you’d expect behind a picket fence two blocks from B.C.’s stately Parliament Buildings in the heart of very Olde English Victoria.

There are no generic pastels here or scenes of fox hunts. Instead, the lounge, lobby and 10 sunny rooms display splashy abstract watercolors and vibrant oils in bright greens, yellows and reds that seem to leap off the white walls. Charcoals and bold line drawings are propped stylishly against the mantels.

While the artwork is firmly rooted in the 20th Century, the furnishings range from prim Scottish antiques and the original Art Deco fixtures to country wicker and rocking chairs. The result is refreshingly innovative, comfortable yet avant-garde.

The lounge, where you can have breakfast in front of the fireplace instead of in your room, has a casual living-room atmosphere, especially in late afternoon when guests gather for sherry. French doors open onto a patio and there are rows of art books to browse from the Olsen collection.

Each of the rooms that lead off the stairwell has a private balcony and its own ambience. Room 20 is dreamy and romantic, with curtains to draw around a queen-sized bed. The Lilac Room is Art Deco.

In our bright corner Room 31, the four-poster has the clean, simple lines of Shaker design with handmade lace draped over a goosedown quilt plump as a cumulus cloud. All of the rooms’ headboards and four-posters were specially created by Vancouver Island craftsmen.

The dream of Olsen and his wife when they renovated the apartment block was a combination bed and breakfast inn and gallery in which to display his art and that of his friends, prominent Victoria artists.

Part of the couples’ aim is to teach people about contemporary art. “I’ve had dozens of visitors say to me, ‘I never thought this modern stuff would ever go with my antiques,’ ” says Lance. “That’s the education.”

Some of it is, quite frankly, bizarre, particularly the work of ceramist David Toresdahl, who has a penchant for severed heads, punchbowls riddled with bullet holes--one of his sculptures is titled “Delicate Bludgeon and Purge Float”--but it is thought-provoking. Olsen’s work hangs only on the bathroom walls.

“It would be an insult to put other artists’ work in there,” he says with a laugh, but admits it does sell.

Most of the art at the inn can be purchased, and a catalogue with prices is available at the front desk, as well as literature on exhibitions at local galleries. Summer rates, which began May 1, range from $95 to $160 plus tax.

Reservations are essential at all inns and, as with most bed and breakfast establishments, pets and smoking are not allowed inside. It’s also wise to check in advance to see if children are accepted.

GUIDEBOOK

Inns of Victoria

Recommended: Grove Hall Estate, 6159 Lakes Road, Duncan, British Columbia V9L 4J6, Canada, telephone (604) 746-6152.

Abigail’s Hotel, 906 McClure St., Victoria, B.C. V8V 3E7, (604) 388-5363.

Humboldt House, 867 Humboldt St., Victoria, B.C. V8V 2Z8, (604) 384-4044.

Holland House, 595 Michigan St., Victoria, B.C. V8V 1S7, (604) 384-6644.

The Beaconsfield Inn, 998 Humboldt St., Victoria, B.C. V8V 2Z8, (604) 384-4044.

For more information: Contact Tourism British Columbia, 2600 Michelson Drive, Suite 1050, Irvine 92715, (800) 663-6000 or (714) 852-1054.