Boultbee, Alfred Ernest | Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada

BOULTBEE, Alfred Ernest (1864-1928) was the third son of Alfred Boultbee, the Member of Parliament for East York. Born at Newmarket on 26 March 1864 he served his apprenticeship with William G. Storm from 1884 until 1886, then worked as assistant to S.H. Townsend for two years. He continued to list himself as an architect in Toronto directories until 1892 but no references to his work during this period can be found. From 1893 he pursued a career as an artist, travelling to Europe and exhibiting his works at annual exhibitions of the Ontario Society of Artists and the Royal Canadian Academy. In 1898 he left for the Yukon and documented the northern landscape in a series of watercolour drawings which survive in the Picture Collection of the National Archives of Canada. Boultbee returned to Toronto in 1899 and by 1903 he was once again practising architecture, designing a number of sumptuous houses in Rosedale on the MacPherson Estate located north of Roxborough Street East. He can also be credited with the design in 1911 of a major addition to 'Rose Cottage', one of the oldest surviving houses in Rosedale built in 1857-58 for Walter Brown. His interiors were influenced by Elizabethan precedent and feature an elaborate living room ceiling inspired by Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, England. Boultbee died in Toronto on 7 December 1928 and was buried St. James Cemetery (obituary in the Toronto Star, 8 Dec. 1928, 30; biography in The Beaver [Winnipeg], Outfit 304, No. 1, Summer 1973, 25-6; Public Archives of Canada, W.H. Coverdale Collection of Canadiana, 1983, 28)

ROXBOROUGH STREET EAST, at Cluny Avenue, residence for John Shaw, 1904 (Toronto b.p. 477, 17 May 1904)
CHESTNUT PARK ROAD, residence for John D. Falconbridge, 1904-05 (Toronto b.p. 24, 14 Nov. 1904)
ROXBOROUGH STREET EAST, residence for James Strachan, 1904-05 (Toronto b.p. 128, 8 Dec. 1904)
(with Horatio C. Boultbee) ROSEDALE, development plan for the MacPherson Estate, 1905 (C.A.B., xviii, April 1905, 51-2, descrip.; 64ff, illus.)
CHESTNUT PARK ROAD, residence for S. Bradley Gundy, 1905 (Toronto b.p. 748, 2 May 1905)
CHESTNUT PARK ROAD, residence for Robert Greig, 1905 (Toronto b.p. 1411, 6 July 1905)
CRESCENT ROAD, major addition to residence, with stables at rear, for J. Ewart Osborne, 1905 (Toronto b.p. 878, 16 May 1905)
CROWN LIFE BUILDING, Queen Street East at Victoria Street, 1905; demol. (Toronto b.p. 1994, 8 Sept. 1905)
CHESTNUT PARK ROAD, residence for John J. Mackenzie, 1905 (Toronto b.p. 2306, 20 Oct. 1905)
ROSEDALE ROAD, near Avondale Road, major addition to 'Rose Cottage', the residence of Mrs. Henry C. Osborne, 1911 (Toronto b.p. 25546, 9 March 1911)
TORONTO LAWN TENNIS CLUB, Price Street, a clubhouse, 1911 (Toronto b.p. 31050, 21 Oct. 1911; History of the Toronto Lawn Tennis Club, 1981, 52-3)