Home > Buildings Associated With Temple Lodge, No. 33 Members > 231 Government Street - Thomas Pitt's automobile dealership

Buildings Associated With Temple Lodge No. 33 Members

THOMAS PITT'S AUTOMOBILE DEALERSHIP

231 Government Street, Duncan, B.C.

The building at 231 Government Street (at the corner of Government Street and Jubilee Street) is currently occupied by Magnolia Fashions, but it has a strong historical connection to Temple Lodge, No.33.

This building was designed and built in 1929 for R.W.B. Thomas Pitt (1870-1937) as a business premises for his garage and automobile dealership. Unfortunately, the Great Depression struck soon after R.W.B. Thomas Pitt opened his car dealership and the business failed.

This building was designed and built for Thomas Pitt in 1929 by architect Douglas James, who lived in Duncan at the time. The building was originally designed as an Art Deco structure but many of the Art Deco elements have been obscured by later renovations. Note, for example, the arches above the doors and windows; these were originally arched cleristory windows which have since been removed or covered over.

After Thomas Pitt left the building, it became a restaurant called the Totem Fountain Lunch, also known as the Totem Cafe, which occupied the building until the 1960s (and possibly later; we'll do some more research on that).

In 2000, it was occupied by another restaurant called the New Totem Restarant. It was later occupied by another restuarant called Dino's, which was destroyed by a fire in this building in 2012 and did not reopen afterwards.

The building was repaired after the 2012 fire and is now occupied by Magnolia Accessories.

Douglas James also designed several other Duncan buildings we have included on our Buildings Associated With Temple Lodge, No.33 Members page: including the old Duncan Fire Hall at 40 Ingram Street (now the Old Firehall Wine Bar) and W.B. Harold Prevost's business building at 45 Craig Street (now Just Jake's Restaurant). We find it interesting that none of these buildings have been credited to Douglas James in current architectural history books or websites so we have made a page for Douglas James on this site as part of our Interesting Connections series and credited him there. Hopefully this will be picked up by search engines and Douglas James will receive belated credit and recognition for designing these buildings.

We know that Douglas James' brother, the Victoria architect Percy Leonard James, was a Freemason but at this time we do not know whether Douglas James was in the Craft. His name does not appear in our records as being a member of Temple Lodge, No.33 but he may have ben a member of a Victoria Masonic Lodge. We will do some research and post what we find.

R.W.B. Thomas Pitt (shown in Fig. 3) had a long and influential history with Temple Lodge, No. 33 and with the City of Duncan.

He was Initiated in Temple Lodge in 1900, served as Lodge Secretary in 1902-03, Treasurer in 1904, Junior Warden in 1905, Senior Warden in 1907 and Worshipful Master in 1908-09. He was appointed District Deputy Grand Master in 1918 (see Fig.3)

He served on Duncan City Council and was Mayor of Duncan in 1914-16 and again in 1924.

Thomas Pitt was also deeply involved in local business. In 1902 he formed a partnership with fellow Temple Lodge, No.33 member Andrew Peterson and bought the Duncan Emporium business from Temple Lodge Charter Member Harry Smith. In 1909, Thomas Pitt and Andrew Peterson formed a partnership with William Jaynes to form Cowichan Merchants Ltd., which became the major retailer in the Cowichan Valley. The Cowichan Merchants Building is included on our Buildings page.

Thomas Pitt sold his interest in the Cowichan Merchants Ltd. to Andrew Peterson in 1919.

Thomas Pitt's obituary says he operated a sawmill at Cobble Hill for a few years after selling his interest in Cowichan Merchants Ltd. It goes on to say that after leaving the sawmill business, he was "in the garage business for ten years..."

That means he had been in the automotive business for several years before having this building erected for his automobile business in 1929. We will do some more research to find out where R.W.B. Thomas Pitt's "garage business" was operating before he had this building erected at 231 Government Street. We will post any information we find.