Pemberton Holmes: 140 Years of Real Estate History in Victoria
Pemberton Holmes has found its home in a few places around Victoria over the past 139 years. Since the days when downtown Victoria was defined by dirt roads, wooden buildings, horses, and streetcars, through the city’s transformation into a bustling urban centre of commercial buildings, paved roads, and busy highways, Pemberton Holmes has been there for it all.
Where It All Began
Victoria has been our head office location since 1887, when Joseph Despard Pemberton and Frederick Bernard Pemberton operated the business from a corner lot on Fort and Broad streets, a property previously used as a stable for J.D.’s horse.
This building eventually became the Pemberton Block before burning down in 1909.
The Pemberton Building
In 1911, the six-storey Chicago School–style Pemberton Building was constructed on the same site, where Pemberton & Son became Pemberton Holmes and where it remained until 1948.
After selling the Pemberton Building to Norman Yarrow in the late 1940s, Pemberton Holmes moved its newly expanded staff and services to 1002 Government Street.
50 Years on Government Street
Coincidentally, this was also roughly the location of Joseph Pemberton’s first office as a colonial surveyor in 1851.
This building would become the head office for 50 years until our 1998 move to the Cloverdale office at the Island Home Centre, which currently serves the Greater Victoria area as the company’s central headquarters.
Growing Across Vancouver Island
Since these first offices, we have opened 15 locations across Vancouver Island and Salt Spring Island.
Returning to Historic Fort Street
Next year, 140 years after our doors first opened on the corner of Fort and Broad, we will be returning to the historic Fort Street in a beautiful 1884 Victorian Italianate-style heritage home, just one kilometre from the original office.
Pemberton Holmes looks forward to spending the next chapter of its history here, continuing to witness, contribute to, and grow alongside the city whose story has been intertwined with our own for nearly a century and a half.
(Fort Street 2026)
(1948)
(Pemberton/Yarrow Building, Pemberton & Son sign bottom right/corner window)
(Pemberton Block, Pemberton & Son sign bottom right window)
