The executive director of the Vancouver Island Local History Society, which runs Point Ellice House, says the historic site could be forced to close next spring if it doesn’t see an increase in its operational funding.
Kelly Black, whose group took over the day-to-day operations of Point Ellice House in 2019, told Victoria council in a letter that the need for funding is dire.
Point Ellice House receives about $80,000 from the provincial government.
Last year, the society and operators of other provincially owned heritage sites, including Carr House in Victoria and Barkerville in the Interior, wrote the province requesting long-term, sustainable funding.
Black says the province has yet to respond.
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps plans write to the province requesting sustainable funding for Point Ellice House and other provincially owned heritage sites, after council’s committee of the whole voted in favour of the move this week.
Council’s motion noted Point Ellice House has important cultural, economic and environmental value to the city as a tourist attraction in the Burnside-Gorge neighbourhood, and as a rare conservancy of vital natural shoreline and forested land in the Rock Bay precinct.
Point Ellice House, situated on the water near the northeast side of the Bay Street Bridge, became a centre of Victoria’s social scene after gold rush commissioner Peter O’Reilly bought the property in 1867.
“Before gaining fame as an explorer, Robert F. Scott — Scott of the Antarctic — would drop by for dinner, tennis or horseback riding when his Royal Navy ship dropped anchor,” Times Colonist Jack Knox has written.
Point Ellice House Museum and Gardens became a provincial heritage site in 1975.
The house is a national and provincial historic site and boasts a collection of more than 12,000 artifacts and two acres of heritage gardens.
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