PARE, Aime (1845- c. 1918) was recorded as an architect in Vancouver in 1891. The following year, in 1892, he was one of 65 architects from the United States and Canada who submitted a design in the competition for the British Columbia Parliament Building in Victoria. His submission, signed with the pseudonym “Anglais”, was not among the five finalists (Martin Segger, The British Columbia Parliament Buildings, 1979, 84-5, list of competitors). The winner of the competition was F.M. Rattenbury of Victoria. Born in the province of Quebec on 25 December 1845, he moved to the United States west coast in February 1875 and lived and worked there until July 1890, then relocated to Vancouver in the following year.
By 1895 Pare had moved to Rossland in the B.C. Interior (British Columbia Directory, 1897, 847), and he was credited as the architect of the new office block in Union, B.C. for the local newspaper that town, New research conducted in the Pacific Northwest region has now confirmed that he is almost certainly the same ' Aime Pare, Architect & Builder' who lived and worked in the San Francisco region from 1878 onward, at first as a carpenter and builder, and as an architect in Fresno, Calif. from 1884 until 1887. His best-known work in that region was the first public school building in the town of Chula Vista, near San Diego (1888). By 1890 he had moved to Washington State, living in eastern region near Spokane, and in the western region near Everett. He was also recorded as a member of Pare Brothers, Architects in San Francisco as early as 1890, and he returned there in 1898 where his name consistently appears as an architect in the annual city directories until at least 1914. No information has been found on his works in the Bay area.
CHULA VISTA, CALIF., a large brick public school building, F. Street, 1888 (National City Record [National City, San Diego County], 30 Aug. 1888, 3, descrip.; Star-News [Chula Vista], 11 Dec. 1975, E5, illus. & descrip.) UNION, B.C., Weekly News Printing Co., 1895 (Weekly News [Union, B.C.], 9 July 1895, 8)