Vancouver Island’s Most Creepiest Abandoned Mansion

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I am a total sucker for castles and abandoned buildings. I have been hooked on exploring abandoned places with history behind it. I went on a local Adventure out to the notorious house in Sooke for it’s crazy atmosphere and gigantic unoccupied building in the middle of nowhere. What a beautiful yet creepy house.

The waterfront mansion was built in 1926 when Capt. P.W. de P. Taylor and his socialite wife Margaret made Sooke their home. It had 12 rooms (most with fireplaces), servants quarters (and a servant’s staircase), and an elevator.

One of Sooke’s finest old homes has been all but destroyed by vandals who have broken the leaded glass windows, smashed walls, and plumbing fixtures, and spray painted every surface within the English-style country estate.

Frédérique Philip, the owner of the Sooke Harbour House, told the Sooke News Mirror how her family had rented the home from 1995 to 1998 and how she still has fond memories of the rambling mansion.

“It was all very English with a lot of bedrooms, a separate staircase for the servants and beautiful woodwork,” recalled Philip.

“We put some electric heaters in to warm it up a little, but it was a very large, very nice house.”

At the time, the home was owned by the Manning family but was sold to film director John Lee Thompson and his wife Penny in 1998.

“We left there soon after, but we had so many good times in that house. It’s so sad to see what people have done to this wonderful home.”

Although the property had been looked after by Sooke resident Pat Forest while it was owned by Film Director J. Lee Thompson family (who lived in California), the house and extensive, 30-acre oceanfront property was sold in 2008 to unknown off-shore buyers and has been unsupervised since.

Thompson died of congestive heart failure on 30 August 2002, at his holiday mansion in Sooke, British Columbia, Canada aged 88.