This was the home of Francis William Whitney Doane - the City Engineer of Halifax. Doane was born at Barrington Passage, Shelburne County on May 31st, 1863. He married Alice Eugene Fisher of Saint John, New Brunswick. She died in 1955 age 86. He died in 1958 age 94.

 

Doane began engineering work in 1882. From 1883 to 1891 he was assistant to the provincial government engineer of Nova Scotia. The work of the Department included, reclamation of land from the sea, construction and repair of public roads, railway surveying and construction, bridge construction, water supply, and sewerage. In 1891 he was appointed City Engineer of Halifax. The duties encompassed various city works, such as engineer and superintendent of water works, charge of public works, street sewers, paving, grading, repairs, maintenance and repairs of city property, and other improvements.

 

The house was also occupied for a number of years by the Dunsworth family. Their second child, John Dunsworth, was a well-known Canadian stage, TV and movie actor.

 

Doane hired the architectural firm of Elliot & Hopson on Barrington Street, to design a home for his family on property he bought on Young Avenue.

 

Dartmouth-born Edward Elliot trained in Boston but in 1878, returned to Halifax and became one the city’s most respected architects. Four years previous to this contract, he had designed Halifax City Hall. He also designed Young Avenue's Point Pleasant Park Gates. In 1895, Elliot joined with Charles Henry Hopson who trained first in Reading and later in London, England.

 

Hopson moved to the United States in 1885 to practise in Philadelphia and Newark, before coming to work under Elliot as his junior partner. Their company, Elliot & Hopson Architects, introduced many U.S. architectural styles to the Maritimes, and theirs was the first firm to open an architecture office in Sydney, Cape Breton.

 

The front entrance has elliptical windows flanking either side. There are three-window type bays on the main and second levels, and double paired, double hung windows under the third floor gable roof. The asymmetrical design of the house features massive eave brackets supporting a steeply pitched cross-gabled roof with wide overhangs. An offset peak decorative portico is held up with a number of Tuscan pillars.

 

The third floor gable features an arch pediment with decorative wave shingling and rounded-type pilasters between the paired windows. The first floor cladding features narrow boards while the second floor has larger ones. Victorian influences were gradually giving way to Edwardian influences.